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CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAETE 



litTi 




CHAEIES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

BIS LIFE AND PUBIIC SERVICES 

BY 
JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP 

■dttor «f " Tbeodon Booanrslt's Letwn to Hia Cblldna**, 

Atttbar of " Theodora BoomvbIC uid Hli Time " 

" The Pkuud* Omtevar." Btc 




NEW YORK 

CBABLES SCRIBNEB'S SONS 

19S2 



CHABLltS SCSIBNES'S SONS 

Priatad Id Um Uiih^ SuUiof AoHrics 

Putmrt Nonmbci. 1B» 




|53?» 



CONTENTS 

I. Ancestry 8 

n. ChIIJ)HOOD AMD YouTH .... 22 

m. CoiXBOE Life 31 

IV. Law School 43 

V. Cabeer as a Lawyer 48 

VI. Morality in Politics 61 

Vn. Fob Good Government in Mary- 
land 66 

VnL High Standards in National Poli- 
tics 77 

IX. Early Association with Roose- 
velt 92 

X. Secretary of the Navy .... 98 

XI. Sbceetart of the Navy (continued) 112 

Xn. Attorney-General 128 

XIII. Attorney-General (continued) . 137 



vi CONTENTS 

XIV. Attornet-Gbnerazj (concluded) . 162 

XV. HuHOB IN Official Life ... 161 

XVI. BxTCBN TO Fbitatb Ldh . . . 173 
XVli. Fatobed RoosETEi/r fob Fbesi- 

DENT IN 1912 18o 

Xviil. Attitude in the Wobu> Wab . 191 

XIX. Habbiage — Citt and Countbt 

Houses 809 

XX. Pebsonauty 228 

XXI. Reugion 237 

XXII. Notable Apfbeciationb . 253 

XXm. FoBMAL Tbibdtes OF Abbocutes . 273 

Index 295 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Charles Joseph Bonaparte FronHt^Me 

Thiee Heads Portrait of Elizabeth Patterson Bona- 
parte, by Gilbert Stuart 18 

Charies Joseph Bonaparte at the age of four . . 28 

Charies Joseph Bonaparte at the age of seven . 28 

Charles Joseph Bonaparte at bis desk in the Navy 

Department 104 

Fac^mile letter from Theodore Roosevelt, dated 

January 15, 1906 ISO 

Fkcamile letter from Theodore Roosevelt, dated 

March 18, 1907 185 

A&8. Charles Joseph Bonaparte 212 

Bust of Ni^leon I, as Gener^, when he was 27 

years of age 216 

View of Bonaparte room in the Baltimore home . 220 

Another view of the Bonaparte room .... 9iS 

The country house, "Bella Vista" 284 



CHAELES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 



CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 
CHAPTER I 



CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE was 
a direct descendant of the Bonapartes 
of Coraca, the family whose name was 
made famous by Napoleon I, Emperor of 
France. He was the grandson of Jerome Bona- 
parte, the youngest of the four brothers of 
Napoleon, and was consequently a grandnephew 
of the Emperor. The story of his ancestry, 
which is that of the founding of the American 
branch of the Bonaparte family, is one of the 
most romantic in our history. It began with 
the marriage, in 1803, of Jerome Bonaparte to 
Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore, and ended 
only with the death of the latter, in 1879, a 
period of seventy-six years. During the early 
ytaxs of that period the marriage was the sub- 
ject of absorbing international interest, largely 
because of the part that Napoleon was playing 
in it, but scarcely less because of the remark- 
able personality of the bride. 



4 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

In the summer of 1803 Jerome Bonaparte, 
then in the nineteenth year of his age, holding 
the rank of captain in the French navy, paid 
a viat to the United States. He is described 
in contemporary accoimts of him as a handsome 
young man of an affectionate and impetuous 
disposition. As a brother of Napoleon, who 
was than First Consul of France, he was re- 
ceived with the highest marks of distinction. 
Official and social honors were lavished upon 
him and he became a great favorite wherever 
he went. Soon after his arrival he visited Balti- 
more and at a ball he met EUzabeth Patterson, 
the daughter of William Patterson, a leading 
merchant and ship owner and one of the wealth- 
iest citizens not only of Baltimore but of the 
country. His daughter, then eighteen years of 
age, was the reigning belle of the city, in the 
first bloom of that beauty which later made her 
famous in European cities, and which she re- 
tained fdmost undinuned far into middle age. 
The verdict of her contemporaries is unanimous 
in awarding her not only qiiite surpassing loveli- 
ness of face and perfection of form, but brilliant 
wit, intellectual gifts of hi^ order, and great 
charm of manner. The susceptible young 
Frenchman succumbed at the first sight of this 
entrancing creature and she, being of a romantic 



ANCESTRY 5 

disposition and dazzled by the brilliant prospect 
of an alliance with a brother of Napoleon, re- 
sponded eagerly to his proflfers of love. Mr. 
Patterson, foreseeing objection to the match 
by Napoleon, forbade the courtship uid sent 
his daughter to Virginia, but the lovers con- 
tinued to correspond with each other, and 
Jerome precipitated matters by procuring a 
marriage license. Finding his opposition was 
in vain, Mr. Patterson consented finally to the 
marriage, but insisted that it should be post- 
poned till after the nineteenth birthday of 
Jerome, on November 15, 1803. The ceremony 
took place on December 24, 1803, and was per- 
formed in accordance with the ritual of the 
Roman Catholic Church, by John Carroll, 
Bishop of Baltimore, afterward Archbishop, and 
the first primate of the Catholic Church in 
America. All precautions were taken to give 
to the union full religioiis and official sanction, 
and all legal formalities were carefully complied 
with. The marriage contract was drawn by 
Alexander J. Dallas, subsequently Secretary of 
the Treasury of the United States, and was 
witnessed by M. Sofin the French Consul at 
Baltimore, by Alexander Le Camas, Jerome's 
secretary, who afterward became Minister of 
Foreign Affairs in the kingdom of Westphalia 



6 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

when Napoleon had made Jerome King of that 
country, and by the Mayor of Baltimore and 
other leading citizens. The original document, 
with signatures, has been presented by the 
widow of Charles J. Bonaparte, to the Maiy- 
land Historical Society in Baltimore. It is in 
an excellent condition of preservation. The 
following extracts from it show clearly that 
Mr. Patterson had a controlling hand in its 
construction, for they embody the fears he was 
known to entertain concerning the outcome of 
the marriage: 

"Article I. — In case of any diflSculty bong 
raised relative to the vaHdity of the said mar^ 
riage either in the State of Maiyland or the 
French R^ublic, the stud Jerome Bonaparte 
engages, at the request of the said Elizabeth 
Patterson and the said William Patterson, or 
either of them, to execute any deed necessaiy 
to ronove the difficulty, and to confer on the 
sfud union all the character of a valid and per- 
fect marriage according to the respective laws 
of the State of Matyland and of the French 
Republic. 

"Article IV. — That if the marriage should 
be annulled dtlier on demand of the sud Jerome 
Bonaparte or that of any monber of his family, 
the said Elizabeth Patto^on shall have a right 



ANCESTRY 7 

in any case to one-third of the real> personal, 
and mixed property of her future husband." 

Immediately following their marriage Jerome 
and his wife visited Washington, where they 
were entertained by the Fr^ch Minister, Gen- 
eral Turreau, and later made a tour of the 
Eastern and Middle States, being accorded a 
series of brilliant entertainments in Boston, 
Philadelphia, New York, and other cities, for 
their marriage was the social sensation of the 
day. 

In the meantime no word came from Napo- 
leon, who was known to be opposed to the 
match. Various efforts were made by Mr. 
Patterson through the American Minister in 
Paris, to reconcile him to it, but all failed. On 
April 20, 1804, near^ four months after the 
wedding. Napoleon sent orders to Jerome to 
retm^ to France by the first French frigate 
sailing from the United States, and at the same 
time sent an order through the French Minister 
of Marine to the French Consul-General in New 
York directing him "to prohibit all captaias of 
French vessels from receiving on board the 
yomig person to whom the citizen Jerome has 
connected himself, it being his (the First Con- 
sul's) intention that she shall by no means come 
into France, and his will that, should she arrive. 



8 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAErS 

she be suffered not to land, but be sent LMiLa^ 
diately back to the United States." 

On the same date the Minister of Masr 
wrote a letter to Jerome in which he quo^^^ 
Napoleon as saying: "I will receive Jwome -^ 
leaving in America the yoimg person in qu^^^ 
tion, he shall come hither to associate hims^^ 
to my fortime. Should he bring her along with^ 
him> she shall not put a foot on the territoiy of 
France. If he comes alone, I shall recall the 
raror of a moment, and the fault of youth.** 
In defiance of this edict, Jerome made several 
efforts, during 1804, all of which failed, to get 
passage with his wife to Europe. In the mean- 
time, Nai>oleon, on May 18, 1804, had declared 
himself Emperor and was more arrogant in 
temper than ever. His anger with Jerome had 
been augmented by the latter*s refusal to ac- 
cept his terms and return to France without his 
wife. 

An interesting letter, the original of which is 
among the many Bonaparte papers in the pos- 
sessicm of the widow of Charles Joseph Bona- 
parte, in Baltimore, gives plausibility to the 
inference that Napoleon sought the aid of his 
mother, Letizia Bonaparte, in the task of in- 
ducing Jerome to desert his wife. It was written 
to Jerome from Paris on December 2d, 1804, 



ANCESTRY 9 

and while the body of the letter is not in the 
mother's handwriting the signature, "Bona- 
parte M^," undoubtedly is. She bore the 
title of "Madame M^re," as a mark of distinc- 
tion when her son became famous. As this 
letter, although alluded to in some of the pub- 
lished works on the career of Jerome, has never 
been published, it is of sufficient interest for a 
truisIatioQ of it to be ^ven here in full: 

Paris, 4th Nivoae, Year IS. 

(gfith December) 

"I do not know, my dear son, how to ac- 
count for your obstinate silence towards your 
mother. It is nearly a year ^ce I received a 
letta from you. My strong affection for you, 
which has increased by reason of your present 
position, does not deserve thb indifference. 

"You must realize what it costs me to see 
some of my children at the hdght of happiness 
while others are unfortunate; but I do not 
despair of sedng you all happy and content 
some day. On this account you must return 
to France as soon as possible without your wife. 
I foresee that this condition will seem hard to 
you, but it is necessaiy for you to make this 
sacrifice and be^ by satisfying your brother 
of your sincere repentance. Then I hope that 
time and patience wUl settle everything. 



10 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

"If you are good enough to follow my ad- 
vice, I hope you will not r^ret it; but if you 
po^st in refu^ng to yield I see no remedy, 
and shall have the misfortune to pass my days 
in sadness. But I abandon myself to more 
consoling ideas and believe that after recdving 
my letter you will surely take steps to return 
to Paris. I have been eight months in Bome 
and only returned a few days ago. The voyage 
gave me a slight indisposition which still ke^s 
me in the house, but which is not serious. I 
left Lucien and his family in good health. 
Everyone elise here is w^. I await news of 
you with impatience and embrace you tenderly, 
Bonaparte Mebe." 

Jerome refused to yield to this appeal, and <»i 
March 11, 1805, he set sail with his wife for 
Lisbon on the £nn, one of Mr. Patterson's 
ships, arriving there on April S. The vessel 
was met by a French frigate, and Madame 
Jerome was not allowed to land. Jenwie left 
lus wife and went to Paris to plead with Napo- 
leon. He was refused an interview and told to 
communicate with the Emperor by letter, which 
he did. In reply the Emperor wrote: 

"I have received your letter of this morning. 
There are no faults that you have committed 



ANCESTRY 11 

which may not be ^aoed in my c^es by a wa-^ 
cere repentance. Your marriage is null, both 
in a rdigious and I^al point of view. / wM 
never acknowledge it. Write to Miss Patterson 
to letum to the United States, and tell her it 
is not possible to give things another turn. On 
condition of her return to America, I will allow 
her a pension during her life of sixty thousand 
francs per year, provided she does not take 
the name of my family, to which she has no 
right, her marriage having no existence." 

Meanwhile, after a few days* delay at Lisbon, 
the Erin with Mrs. Jerome and her brother 
sailed for Amsterdam, arriving there on May 1. 
llie vessel was met in the Texel Roads by two 
wsLTHships and all communication with the shore 
was forbidden. After lying there under strict 
guard for eight days, the Erin sailed for Dover, 
arriving there May 19. So great had been the 
interest aroused by Mrs. Jerome's various ex- 
periences that Mr. Pitt, Prime Minister of Eng- 
limd, sent a regiment to Dover to hold in check 
the great throng that had assembled to see her 
land. She took up her residence at Camberwell, 
En^and, where, on July 7, 1805, a son, her 
only child, was bom and was named Jerome 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Napoleon had, in the meantime, done his ut- 



n CHABLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

most to have the marriage made void. On 
May 24> 1805, he addressed a letter contaming 
several glaring misstatements to Pope Pius VII» 
requesting him to publish a bull annulling the 
marriage, accompanying the request with the 
present of a handsome gold tiara. This was the 
Pope who had conducted the coronation cere- 
monies in Notre Dame, Paris, on December S, 
1804, when, greatly to the discomfort of his 
Holiness who was about to place the crown on 
Napoleon's head, the latter snatched it from 
his hands and proceeded first to crown himself 
and next to crown Josephine. 

The Pope, on June 26, 1805, replied that he 
had made careful researches to ascertain if his 
apostolic authority could furnish any method 
<tf satisfying the Emperor's wishes but could 
find none, and was compelled to refuse to de- 
clare the nullity of the marriage. The refusal 
of the Pope infuriated Napoleon who never 
forgave him for it. He at once instructed his 
Imperial Council of State to declare the mar- 
riage null and void, an order which that sub- 
servient body obeyed without protest or deli^. 

After leaving his wife at Lisbcm, Jerome did 
not see her again. He wrote to her quite fre- 
quently, avowing his undying love for her and 
assuring her he would never abandon her» and 



ANCESTRY IS 

would nev^ forget that he was her husband 
and the father of her child; but the uncom- 
promising pressure of Napoleon upon him was 
more than his natiutilly weak nature could re- 
sist. After the lapse of a few months, he made 
his submission and was admitted to the presence 
of the Emperor who saluted him with the words: 
"So, sir, you are the first of the family who 
shameful^ abandoned his post. It will require 
many splendid actions to wipe off that stain 
from your reputation, as to your love-affair 
with your little girl I do not regard it." As the 
reward of consenting to the divorce, Jerome 
was created a Prince of the empire aad pro- 
moted to the rank of admiral. 

Writing to her father on August 14, 1805, 
in regard to Napoleon's offer of 60,000 francs a 
year, Mrs. Jerome said: "I have never taken 
the sHghtest notice of it." But she subsequent- 
ly accepted it. In the same letter she said in 
speaking of Jerome: "As we have no reason to 
suppose that he will ever consent to give me 
up, we must certainly act as if we supposed 
him possessed of some principle and honor." She 
had proof a few weeks later that this supposition 
was unfounded, and in October, 1805, she sailed 
for the United States with her infant son. As 
further reward for his desertion, Jerome was 



14 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

made by the Saiatei' in 1806, successor to the 
imperial throne, in the event of Napoleon's leav- 
ing no male heir, and in 1807 he was created 
King of Westphalia. In Atigust of that year 
he married Catherine Frederica, Princess of 
WUrtemburg. Three children were bom of this 
marriage. His reign was very tmpopular and 
he was repeatedly rebuked by the Emperor for 
his profligacy, immorahty, and general misbe- 
havior. He and his first wife, who after his 
deserUon called herself Madame Bonaparte, 
never saw each other again after th^ parted at 
Lisbon except once in the gallery of the Pitti 
Palace in Florence, in 1822, when th^ came 
face to face with mutual recognition but passed 
without speaking. 

Madame Bonaparte took up her residence in 
her foiher's house in Baltimore, on her return 
to America in 1805, remaining thete till the 
sununer of 1815. She was never happy in that 
city f^ter her experience abroad, and when the 
news of Napoleon's downfall reached her she 
started immediately for Europe. She had in 
that year obtained, through a special act of 
the Maryland Legislature, a divorce from her 
husband. Writing to her father from England, 
on September 2, 1815, she spoke of the United 
States as "a country where I never was appre- 



ANCESTRY 15 

ciated and where I can never be contented," 
and of Europe as a country in whidi she was 
** cherished, visited, respected, and admired." 
where she was *'in the first society " and "in 
the sphere and in contact with modes of life 
for which nature intended me." From Eng- 
land she went to Paris in the winter of 1815- 
1816, inunediately after the abdication of Napo- 
leon and the accession of Louis XVUI, and her 
reception there was all that her heart could 
wish. "Her success was greater than that ever 
before enjoyed there by any American woman. 
Her sufferings had made her a herome, and her 
grace and beauty now made her a social queen. 
. . . The Duke of Wellington was among her 
admirers, Talleyrand praised her wit, Madame 
de Stael ^dolled her beauty, and the leading 
men of the time sought her acquaintance." * 
A letter which she wrote to her father on Febru- 
ary 22, 1816, contains a passage which shows 
the opinion she had come to hold of her hus- 
band: "The ex-King of Westphalia is now 
living at the court of Wtirtemburg. He has a 
large fortune, and is too mean to support his 
own son. 

Madame Bonaparte returned to Baltimore in 
the summer of 1816, and remained there till 

* " life Hid Lettwi of Madame Bonaparte." Eugoke L. Didier. 



16 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

May 1, 1819, when she sailed again for Europe 
with her son, going to Geneva, where the boy, 
then fourteen years of age, was to be put to 
school. She was welcomed in Geneva with the 
same social honors that had been bestowed 
upon her in Paris, and during the ensuing eight 
years she passed most of her time there, making 
occasional visits to Rome, Florence, and Paris. 
In the spring of 1820, the Princess Borghese, 
Jerome's sister Pauline, sent an invitation to 
her to visit Rome in company with her son and 
make the acquaintance of the Bonaparte family. 
The Princess was especially desirous of seeing 
the boy of whom flattering accounts had reached 
her. According to his mother he was at this 
time an attractive youth. "He has," she wrote 
to her father, "more conversation and better 
manners, a more graceful presentation, than 
other children of his age, and I am constantly 
tormented with the fear of seeing him spoiled 
by the compliments paid him in society. . . . 
He has grown taller, and much better looking; 
he is thought very handsome, but I do not my- 
self think him by any means a beauty, and 
regret that others tell him so, as it is a kind of 
praise which never made anyone better or hap- 
pier." These are interesting observations, com- 
ing from a woman who had been hailed in the 



-;^ 



ANCESTRY 17 

leading cities of Europe for many years as one 
of the most beautiful in the world. 

Madame Bonaparte hesitated for some 
months about accepting the invitation of the 
Princess but finally decided to do so, being 
convinced that her son's interests would be pro- 
moted thereby. In November, 1821, she left 
Geneva for Rome with young Jerome, and soon 
after arrival there called with him upon the 
Princess and Madame M^ who were living 
together. They were cordially received and 
Madame M^re and the Princess were so much 
pleased with the son that they entered at once 
upon a project to have him marry Charlotte, 
the daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, ihe eldest 
brother of Napoleon, and at one time King of 
Naples, who was then living in the United States 
under the name of Comte de Survilliers. Ma- 
dame Bonaparte warmly supported the project, 
and her son was at the time in favor of it, for 
he wrote to his grandfather Patterson, on Jan- 
uary 7, 1822, in regard to the proposed mar- 
riage: "I hope it may take place, for I could 
return immediately to America to pass the 
rest of my life among my relatives and friends. 
Mamma is very anxious for the match. My 
father is also, so that I hope you will approve 
of it." 



18 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

In furiheraiice <rf the project, young Jerome 
sailed in February, 182S, for the United States, 
and soon after his arrival called upon his uncle 
at his residence in Philadelphia. He was re- 
ceived in a friendly manner, but his uncle made 
no allusion to the proposed marriage. When 
he called a second time, he was told that the 
Comte was absent "on his travels," and no 
more was heard of the project. It was evident 
that his uncle who had at first professed to 
favor the match had changed his mind. 

In accordance with his mother's wishes, in case 
the match did not come off, Jerome proceeded 
to Lancaster, Mass., and began his preparation 
for admission to Harvard University under the 
instruction of a tutor. Eight months later, in 
February, 1823, he was admitted to the uni- 
versity. He was graduated in 1826, and soon 
afterward sailed for Europe to join his mother. 
He renewed his friendly relations with the mem- 
bers of the Bonaparte family, including his 
father who was then Uving in Rome. Writing 
to his grandfather Patterson, on January 17, 
1827, he said: "My father is very anxious for 
me to remain with him altogether, but I cannot 
think for a moment of settling myself out of 
America to whose government, manners and 
customs I am too much attached and accus- 



ANCESTRY 19 

tomed to find pleasure in those of Europe which 
are so different from my early education." His 
father wished him to marry and settle in Eu- 
rope, but his preference for life in America was 
not to be overcome. He sailed for the United 
States in June, 1827, and two years later, No- 
vember 3, 1829, he married Miss Susan May 
Williams, of Baltimore. Congratulations came 
to him from all the members of the Bonaparte 
family, including Madame M6re, but none from 
his mother, who was imable to reconcile herself 
to the marriage. 

Upon the accession of Napoleon ID, in 1852, 
Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte visited Paris and 
was warmly welcomed by the Emperor who 
called him "My dear cousin," invited him to 
dine at the imperial palace, and subsequently 
secured from the Council of State a decree mak- 
ing him a citizen of France, and entitling the 
descendants of Elizabeth Patterson to the name 
of Bonaparte, although they could not be recog- 
nized as members of the imperial family. This 
was granted in spite of a formal protest by Je- 
rome Bonaparte, ex-King of Westphalia. After 
his death in 1860, Madame Bonaparte, through 
her son, made an appeal in the French courts 
for a share in his estate, but as to grant this 
appeal would be to establish the rights of her- 



«0 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

self and descendants to membership in the im- 
perial family, it was denied, probab^ through 
imperial influence. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte 
protested vigorously to the Emperor against the 
injustice of the decree of the Council of State, 
and returned to Baltimore, where he passed the 
remainder of his life. He had studied law but 
he never practised the profession, and devoted 
himself to the management of his inherited 
fortune and the property of his wife. He died 
in Baltimore on June 17, 1870, at the age ofsixty- 
five, leaving two sons, Jerome Napoleon Bona- 
parte bom on November 5, 1830, and Charles 
Joseph Bonaparte bom on June 9, 1851. The 
latter was named Charles after his great grand- 
father, the father of Napoleon, and Joseph after 
his great uncle, the eldest brother of Napoleon. 
Madame Bonaparte, after repeated visits of 
considerable length to Europe retumed to Balti- 
more in 1861, and remained there till her death 
on April 4. 1879. 

On the maternal side the ancestry of Charles 
had a strong Pxuitan strain.~His grandmother, 
Elizabeth Patterson, was of Scotch-Irish descent 
and his motiier, Susan May Williams, came of 
New England stock. The dominating influence 
upon his life came from his mother, who was a 
woman of high intelligence and great force of 



ANCESTRY 21 

character. Through constant and intimate 
association with him during his childhood and 
early manhood she imbued him with the prin- 
ciples that she had inherited from her New 
Eng^d ancestors and moulded his character 
upon those lines of rigid moraHty from whidi 
he never varied. She taught him also to forget 
his French ancestry and become, as she herself 
waSi a loyal and devoted American. During 
the Civil War when popular sentiment in Mary- 
land was strong^ on the side of the South, she 
was so outspoken and aggressively for the Union 
that she was very unpopular with the large 
element of Southern sympathizers in Baltimore. 
Her husband took the side of the North in the 
Civil War, and when the war split the Mary- 
land Club of Baltimore in two, and the Northern 
secUon of it formed the Union Club, he became 
its first President. 

It was from his mother that Charles got the 
inspiraticm and the courage which he displayed 
in his long fight against corrupt men and cor- 
rupt methods in politics and which earned for 
him, in the estimation of all true men, the title 
of model citizen and patriotic American. 



CHAPTER n 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE was 
bom nearly tweniy-one years after his 
brother, Jercnne Napoleon. He arrived 
in the household just as his brother was lea^^ng 
it for active life, for Jerome was a cadet in the 
West Pomt Military Academy, and the first 
journey that Charles took was, in his nurse's 
arms, to West Point when he was barely a year 
old, to be present at his brother's graduation 
from the academy in 1852. Inmiediatefy after 
graduation Jerome was assigned to service on 
the Texas frontier where he was stationed till 
1854, when he resigned from the United States 
army and joined the French imperial army as 
lieutenant of dragoons. He was on active ser- 
vice in the French army for many years. In 
the Crimean War he distinguished himself at 
Balaklava, Inkerman, Teherin, and the siege 
of Sebastopol, and was decorated by the Sultan 
of Turkey with the order of Medjidia, was 
awarded the Crimean medal by the Queen of 
England, and was made a Knight of the Legion 
of Honor. Later as lieutenant and captain of 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23 

the Chasseurs d'Afrique he took part in the 
Algerian campaign of 1857. In the Italian 
campaign against Austria he served with dis- 
tinction in the battles of Montebello and Sol- 
ferino, receiving French and Italian decorations. 
In 1865 he was transferred to the Empress's 
dragoon guard. He afterward returned to the 
United States where, on September 7, 1871, 
he married Mrs. Caroline Edgar, nie Appleton. 
He died in Massachusetts on September 4, 
1893. 

Jerome's greater age and absence from home 
left Charles practically in the situation of an 
only child in the household. He had no home 
companions of his own age and passed his in- 
fancy in association with persons of mature 
years. The natural effect of this intercourse 
was to ffye him methods of thought and speech 
far in advance of his age. While he was a soli- 
tary child he was never a lone^ one. He was 
always sweet and gentle. He loved books and 
found deUght in drawing maps on the floor and 
relating histories about them. His nurse, named 
Mammie, the widow of a Dutch sea captain, 
to whom he was warmly attached not only dur- 
ing his childhood, but as long as she lived, im- 
pressed upon him the necessity of always telling 
the truth, saying if he did not nobody would 



24 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ever have confidence in him. On one occasion, 
when his mother had told him she was not going 
out and later he discovered her going, he said 
in his prim and precise way; "Madame, you 
have lost my confidence." On festival occasions 
he usually spent the day at the house of his 
grandfather Patterson's brother, and while there, 
when he was about six years old, his host said 
to him: "You are a French boy, Charlie." 
"No," was the quick response, "I am an Amer- 
quin boy." His love for America had been in- 
stilled into him by his mother and it continued 
with him, steadily increasing in fervor, till the 
day of his death. 

When six years old he was sent to a French 
school, one directed by Monsieur and Madame 
Bujac at Tusculum, then a suburb of Balti- 
more, but now a part of the city. When his 
father asked him if he wished to go, he replied: 
"No, but I may as well make the best of it." 
The school was only two miles away and he 
returned home each week-end, riding on a pony 
that was sent for him, and he was always found 
at the window eagerly watching for its coming. 
He was a quiet, self-reliant little chap, perfectly 
content to amuse himself while alone, and ready 
"to make the best of it" under all conditions. 
He remained in the Bujac school for about six 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 2S 

years, where Jie was taught French, and during 
that time he wrote regularly to his father whose 
interest in him was deep and constant. Many 
of these childish letters are still in existence, 
having been carefully preserved by his father. 
They are curiously imehildlike in form and ex- 
pression, but thoroughly characteristic of a boy 
who had hved entirely with persons older than 
himself. One of the first in the series was in 
French, and was written after he had been a few 
years in the school and had acquired a knowl- 
edge of that language: 

"MON CHER Papa, Tusculum. 

"Je ne puis laisser passer cette epoque de 
Tannic sans vous temoigner I'amour que j'ai 
pour vous; et vous assurer que men cceur fait 
bien des voeux poxur votre sante et pour votre 
bonheur; ainsi que pour celui de mon cher 
fr^, qui partage avec vous toute mon affec- 

Votre fils devout 
Charles Joseph Bonaparte." 
le 21 Dec. 1860. 

(TraTislation.) 
«Mt dear Papa: Tuaculum. 

"I cannot let this season of the year go by 
without declaring my love for you; and assur- 



26 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ing you that my hei^ wishes health and hap- 
piness for you and for my dear brother too« 
who shares with you all my affection. 
Your devoted son, 
Charles Joseph Bonaparte." 

Subsequent letters were written indifferently 
in French and English, the child having ac- 
quired a facile use of both languages. Among 
the papers which the fond parents preserved 
with religious care is the following "Allegory," 
written by Charles when he was twelve years 
old: 

"Every person when he enters life may be 
supposed to be on a level plateau between two 
roads, one ascending and the other descending, 
both very slippery. The road is life, the ascend- 
ing section is called 'virtue' the descending one 
'vice.* The level plateau is made of wood and 
is movable, but as long as the person is light 
enough it remains stationary. The name of 
the plateau is 'Childhood,' and it remains 
stationary until the person is increased in 
weight by a species of very heavy dothing 
called 'Reason,' which, at length, so increases 
the weight of the person that the plateau slides 
away from under him and leaves him standing 
on the slippery road. At the end of 'Virtue* 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27 

is a glorious City called 'Heaven,' and at the 
Old of 'Vice' is a venomous plain of red hot 
iron called 'Hell.* Governing the great City 
is a good and wise King whose name is *God,' 
and governing the red hot plain is a wicked 
fiend named 'Satan.' Of course, every one 
prefers to reach the splendid city rather than 
the red hot plain, but the road is so slippery 
that, alone, no one could ascend it, or even 
stay stationary, for by his own weight, he would 
commence to slide down 'Vice' until he is pre- 
cipitated, from an immense precipice, into the 
red hot plain. So 'God' in order to help him 
up has sent three elastic ropes, called 'Faith,' 
*Hope* and 'Charity.' Tlie two first are fast- 
oied roimd his head, but the last is bound round 
his breast, and, if the person chooses, he can 
thus draw himself up to Heaven, but, if he does 
not go up, he must go down, and then, first. 
Charity, then Hope and then Faith, break, and 
he is hurled down into the red hot plain where 
he remains." 

He was clearly a model pupil, displaying at 
that early age the same ability to acquire knowl- 
edge easily and quickly which distinguished him 
throughout his life. His teachers testified to 
his irreproachable conduct and his high stand- 
ing in all bis studies. The following letter to 



28 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

his father, under date of June 27, 1863, gives 
evidence of his proficiency: 

"MON CHER PiBE, Tusculum. le J7 Juta, 1863. 

"Comme j'ai ecrit une lettre k ma m^, 
et deux k men fr^re, j'ai peur que (vous) ne 
croyiez que je vous ai oubli^; mais j'ai essaye 
de vous ecrire plusieurs fois, et comme au- 
jourd'hui est le dernier Samedi de I'ann^e j'ai 
essay6 encore une fois de vou3 Ecrire une petite 
lettre. 

"J'ai rcQU six prix, et j'esp^re qu'ils vous 
phuront et qu'ils plairont k ma chere mere aussi. 
lb sont pour la bonne conduite, le frant^, 
I'anglais, le latin, rarithmetique, et le dessin. 

"Vous m'avez dit quand vous 6tiez ici que 
votre cheval Charlie etait malade et j'espere 
qu'au moment oil je vous 6cris qu'il n'est pas 
mort, car c'est un bon cheval qui vous a cottk 
cent quatre-vingt dollars. 

Votre fils affectionn^, 
Charles Joseph Bonapabte." 

(Translation.) 
"Mt dear Father, Tusculum, June 27. 186S. 

"As I have written a letter to my mothw 
and two to my brother, I am afraid you will 
think I have forgotten you; but I have tried 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 29 

to write you several times, and since today is 
the last Saturday of the year I am trying once 
more to write you a little letter. 

"I have received six prizes which I hope will 
please you and my dear mother too. They are 
for good conduct, French, English, Latin, arith- 
metic and drawing. 

"You told me when you were here that your 
horse Charlie was sick, and I hope at the mo- 
ment I am writing you that he is not dead, for 
he is a good horse that cost you $180. 
Your afiFectionate son, 
Charles Joseph Bonapabtb." 

In another letter, written on March 18, 1864, 
he says of his studies: "They never fatigue me 
at all and I always have time for recreation." 

His schooldays at Tusculum ended in June, 
1864, with the hasty flight of Madame Bujac's 
husband to Canada. Charles sets forth the 
facts in the case in a letter to his father, who 
was then abroad, under date of June 26: 

»Mt dear Pa, Baltimore. June 26, 1864. 

"I received your letter of the 9th, yesterday, 
together with one from my brother, which I 
will answer as soon as I can. 

"I have to state some highly important 



30 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

domestic news. Mx. Bujac has broken up his 
school, and has evaporated in the direction of 
Canada for fear of the draft, and, of course, 
this has created a great deal of confusion. 

"Ma has, however, engaged Mr. Purcell, 
the former teacher at Mr. Bujac's, to give me 
lessons in Latin, Greek, EngUsh, and mathe- 
matics, and Mr. Rabillon to continue my 
French. 

"I think that Mr. Bujac acted very foolishly, 
in leaving all his affairs unsettled, and bolting 
when there was no danger of his being drafted, 
he being phyacaDy xmfit for it. 

"Although I greatly regret that the school 
is broken up still I am very much pleased with 
the new order of things and being at home. 

"With my love to brother, I remain, your 
affectionate son. Charles." 

During the next five years he studied for a 
time under private tutors, and in the Reverend 
George F. Morrison's school in Baltimore. His 
fellow pupils in the school said of him that he 
easily took and held front rank in everything. 
"Boney," said one of them in after-years, "was 
the most brilliant boy in the school. When ha 
took a side in debate it always won." 



CHAPTER in 

COLLEGE LIFE 

IN the autumn of 1869, Charles 3. Bonaparte 
entered Harvard University as a junior, 
his studies having been so far advanced 
as to enable him to pass all the necessary ex- 
aminations easily. From the time of entering 
to his graduation from the Law School in 1874, 
he wrote constantly to his parents and a record 
of his experiences at Cambridge can be com- 
piled adequately from his letters. He entered 
the university at the moment when Doctor 
Eliot was beginning his long service as Presi- 
dent, and it is interesting perhaps to quote 
what he wrote to his father in September about 
him: "He is not finding any veiy hearty good- 
will on the part of the Faculty. He seems to 
be a very energetic person, has already made 
some changes, and contemplates many others, 
but is very cordially disliked by the professors." 
This recalls the lively description of the new 
President's proceedings which Doctor Oliver 
Wendell Holmes wrote to Motley at about the 



32 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

same time: "Our new President, Eliot, has 
turned the whoie University over like a flap- 
jack." 

From his early childhood to the end of his 
life, Bonaparte was a devoted Catholic, and it 
was quite natural for him to write to his mother 
in his first days at Harvard: "I have several 
times been to prayers but, as I sit near the door, 
I cannot hear what Dr. Peabody says at all. 
As he is a heretic, however, it is of no moment." 

Early in his college career Bonaparte ex- 
hibited that interest in public affairs and that 
zeal for <avil service and other reforms to which 
he devoted such inteUigent energy in his after- 
life. Writing to his mother, on November 12, 
1870, he said of the elections of that month 
which had resulted in Democratic gains: "It is 
perfectly clear that no politician can ever be 
found to honestly execute the will of the peo- 
ple in regard to office holders. Politicians will 
never resign themselves to the destruction of 
the one means by which they have gained noto- 
riety and retained their positions. Nor can any 
President, however respectable he may be be- 
fore his presidency, be expected to resist the 
temptations brought against him by the cor- 
rupt and despicable class of men with whom 
he must associate. ... I hope and believe that 



COLLEGE LIFE 3S 

the pubUc mind and conscience are gradually- 
waking up to the existence of this crying evil, 
that at the moment of my entrance into life I may 
see the commencement of an agitation which will 
end in placing morality and intelligence among 
the qualities which the American people de- 
mand in those who govern them." 

He applied his reform principles to college 
politics, for in the same letter he wrote: "It is 
a curious instance of the way in which bad in- 
stitutions influence the thought and morals of 
a nation that we have here in the choice of our 
dass officers the same system of wire pulling, 
toadyism and lying that prevails on a larger 
scale in our national politics. The officers 
elected on Thursday were all chosen through, 
what I considered, very disgraceful and un- 
gentlemanly means, and for the most important 
position, that of orator, we have a man who is 
one of the least popular persons in the class^ 
and who certainly was not the choice of a fourth 
of those present at the meeting. I, of course, 
have had no part in this electioneering, and by 
way of marking my disapprobation of such pro- 
ceedings, left the meeting with some of my 
friends before the voting began." 

Later his protest against the methods em- 
ployed took practical shape in the formation 



34 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

of the Signet Society. Writing to his mother 
again on December 11, 1870, he said: "The 
Signet is a new Senior Society formed within 
the last few months, and consisting of some 
fifteen or twenty members among my friends 
in the class. I think I mentioned to you that 
the class election was conducted in a veiy dis- 
creditable manner. That such was the case 
was principally caused by the manipulation by 
a set of intriguers of the H. H. and Hasty Pud- 
ding Societies, the principal open societies in 
the College. I was so disgusted at the way in 
which these societies were run for the benefit 
of wire pullers and toadies that I went quite 
eagerly into a project to establish a society free 
from the influence of personal ambition and 
also from that of the secret fraternities that to 
a great extent control our class 'politics.' Out 
of this idea grew the Signet. It is a secret so- 
dety, of course, but has the full support of the 
President and faculty, and if it becomes what 
we hope it will become, it will certainly be a 
force for good introduced into our College life.** 
This prediction was fulfilled by the subse- 
quent career of the society, for, after passing 
safely through vicissitudes of various kinds, it 
has continued to exist to the present day, and 
is one of the most beneficent intellectual in- 



COLLEGE LIFE 35 

fluences in the life of the university. In one 
of the catalogues of the society, that of 1903, 
Bonaparte wrote an account of its birth in which 
he said: 

"The Signet came into being as an essen- 
tially mihtant body: it existed that it might 
protest against evils of the day at Harvard; 
and a sort of crusading, self-asserting spirit 
marked it from the beginning: a mild joke in 
the 'Harvard Advocate' suggested *a seal ram- 
pant' as an emblem for the new society. It 
believed itself to have, howevo", and expteri- 
ence has shown that it had, in fact, a broader 
mission than merely to remedy abuses in the 
choice of officers for Class Day. Among the 
fifteen who joined it in 1871 were some who 
knew Uttle, and cared less, about the disputes 
and intrigues which had preceded the class 
election, but who felt strongly that a college 
society ought not to be a school of frivolity 
or snobbeiy, still less one of wire-pulling, and 
that some societies then existing might be de- 
scribed, uncharitably perhaps, but not alto- 
gether untruthfully, as but Kttle better. These 
men had in view to found a society which should 
choose its members for real merit of some sort, 
and not for accidental advantages or mere good 
fdlowship, and should be for them a source of 



Sa CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

moral and intellectual devdopmoit, not of 
nmple amusement. 

'"TIus idea has proved sound and fruitful; 
it has corrected, with the aid of time, the bitter- 
new which caused the society's birth, and found 
expression in some of its early laws; it has pre- 
vented the profession of higher purpose, which 
it made, from degenerating into conceit and 
self-righteousness. We may smile a little after 
thirty years at the earnestness with which we 
did our work as founders, but after all it was 
work of which we need not feel ashamed." 

Charles always had a great admiration for 
his brother Jerome who was in the French im- 
perial army, and he maintained a regular corre- 
Mpondence with him. After the overthrow of 
Napoleon in in 1870, Jerome's situation was' 
a critical one, and his brother's anxiety foimd 
frequent expression in his letters to his mother. 
T\iU8 on November 26, 1870, he wrote: 

"I continue perfectly well and very bugy. 
I ipcnd eight cents daily in newspapers, and 
(wruse with avidity everything relating to Paris, 
but otherwise my mind is tranquil. All that 
t have to conduct is going on well, and in re- 
)(Hrd to other matters, we must only trust to 
tVtvidence to bring out everything for the 
bMt" 



COLLEGE LIFE 37 

Much difficulty was experienced in getting 
the letters from his family to Jerome, and in 
answer to some complaints on the subject which 
Mrs. Bonaparte had made to Charles, he, his 
civil-service-reform ideas as rampant as ever, 
wrote, on December 3, 1870: 

"I think it would be very well for you not to 
send any more letters through the State De- 
partment. The officials are evidently unwilling 
to despatch them, and there is no certainty 
that they are really sent. Your indignation at 
the incivility of our rulers was reasonable, but 
founded on the erroneous idea that the public 
service is supported for the good of the Nation, 
and that those persons are chosen to conduct 
it who are fitted for the position. Nothing can 
be more absurd than such an idea. The govern- 
ment exists solely for the good of professional 
pohticians, and its places are filled by such 
persons as are too dishonest or too imbecile 
to find support in any other manner. 

"I sincerely trust that my poor brother may 
be saved from the perils that surround him and 
restored to our little family circle, but if Provi- 
dence should decree otherwise, we must bear 
it as we have borne the other trials we have had 
to endure during this year, with quiet resigna- 
tion. What he shall do in regard to a matter 



38 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

concerning him alone, must be left, I think, 
solely to his own judgment." 

The stem sense of justice, which he mani- 
fested so imflinchingly throughout his career, 
found early expression in a letter to his mother 
on December 17, 1870: 

"There was a most outrageous proceeding 
here on Thursday night. A keg of powder was 
inserted between the rafters and the laths of 
the floor of the first story in Stoughton, and 
exploded by means of a fuse in the cellar. The 
injuiy done to the building was considerable, 
and it is a most extraordinary thing that it 
was not set on fire, and the Freshmen occupy- 
ing the rooms over the powder killed. I was 
quite near the building at the tune, and there 
were several persons about it who might have 
been very severely injured by the explosion, if 
in no other way, by the glass from the windows, 
which blew in all directions. The President 
a^ed us at prayers the next morning to aid 
the authorities in discovering the perpetrators 
of the outrage, and said they should be imme- 
diately expelled; but I think they should be 
indicted, as it is a criminal offence, and sent 
to the penitentiary, to leam there regard for 
the lives and property of their fellow beings." 

The dominating influence which the "first 



COLLEGE LIFE S9 

families of Boston" exerted at that time and 
for many years afterward upon the Ufe of the 
university apparently had no terrors for him, 
for on January 21, 1871, he wrote to his mother: 

"My conduct in not having any coimection 
with the affairs of the class has excited much 
astonishment among those of the Aristocracy 
who have heard of it, and, when it is generally 
known, I think the amazement of the descen- 
dants of the Puritans will know no bounds. 
The average mind of a Bostonian cannot con- 
ceive of any less fortunate mortal's avoiding 
an occasion to be honored by their presence. 
As not a few members of the class intend to 
follow my example, I fancy Class Day may 
not be the most harmonious festivity in the 
world this year." 

His militant loyalty to the Catholic Church 
was exhibited on all occasions, for then, as al- 
ways during his life, he was its devoted dis- 
ciple and champion. He wrote to his mother 
on February 18, 1871: 

"Speaking of Holy Week reminds me to ask 
you to send on a copy of the Archbishop's pas- 
toral letter in regard to the Lifallibility dogma. 
I have numerous combats — oratorical cmes — 
with the heretics at our table, who, although 
diSmng widely among themselves, and mu- 



40 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

fually accusing each other of bigotry and un- 
christian tenets, all unite to assail the doctrines 
of the true church, valiantly defended by poor 
little me. The dogma of the Infallibility is 
the most tempting ground of assault, and I 
should like to refresh my memory in r^ard to 
some of the old Coimcils the Archbishop quotes 
in such numbers. I do not think the Catholics, 
although Heaven knows they are ignorant 
enough of the tenets of their foes, can be 
charged with aa unusual amount of ignorance 
on the subject. It certainly is extraoidinary 
that young men who can go to College should 
devoutly believe convents to be houses of prosti- 
tution, and mendacity a virtue in our creed; 
but there are such persons to be found here in 
great nuinbers. At our table we have one high 
church Episcopalian, one low church do., one 
Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Lutheran, one 
Unitarian, one who has never been baptised, 
and one infidel, besides myself; you see, we 
form a very happy family." 

Throughout his two years of college life he 
took high rank in all his studies. A member 
of the faculty said of him tiiat he never came 
before that body except for honors. At the end 
he received the second highest honor at Com- 
mencement, as he described in a letter to his 
mother on March 4, 1871 : 



COLLEGE LIFE 41 

"The Commaicement parts were given out 
on Thursday, and 'the child* received the Salu- 
tatory Address in Latin, a veiy complimaitaiy, 
though also difficult, part. It is doubly com- 
plimentaiy in this case, as the Faculty gave it 
to me on trust without knowing my exact rank, 
which it is very necessary to know for this part, 
as it is one which must be performed, there 
bedng no other to choose from. The announce- 
ment of it has caused to some of my classmates 
more surprise than pleasure, as some of the 
high scholars were engaged in the conduct of 
the class elections, and my enei^etic denuncia- 
tion of their proceedings has not increased their 
affection for me; besides which, if all Harvard 
studoits were not above such petty feelings, 
one might suspect some stray grains of envy 
to be scattered about. The part is not, how- 
evet, an easy one to deliver, as it must be spoken 
first of all and in Latin, not a very easy thing 
for a young orator to satisfactorily perform. 
I suppose I shall have Miss Susan among my 
hearers. t'M>ss Susan* was his favorite pet 
name for his mother.l 

"As the different pfu>ts are assigned now 
only provisionally regarding the excellence of 
our performance during the rest of the year, 
I thought I would ask my different instructors 



42 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

for my marks to see whether I was in great 
danger of losing mine. Although I could not 
obtain the exact marks, they all appeared to 
approach so near a maximum, that I concluded 
the danger was not very inmiinent." 

High testimony to his standing in the uni- 
versity was given in a letter to his mother by 
Doctor A. P. Peabody, for many years Pro- 
fessor of Christian Morals at Harvard, the same 
Doctor Peabody that Charles had dubbed a 
"heretic" at the outset of his college career. 
Writing on July 11, 1871, Doctor Peabody 
said: 

" I appreciate your intense solicitude for 
your elder son, and I most earnesUy hope and 
pray, not only that he will be saved from all 
harm, but that the sad cause of your anxiety 
may be soon removed by the restoration of 
peace. For your son Charles you have no need 
that I should add to the good you know of him. 
There is not a member of College who has pre- 
cedence of him in character, and in claims on 
the highest respect and honor, as there is cer- 
tainly no one who excels him in substantial 
ability and valuable acqui^tions." 



CHAPTER IV 
LAW SCHOOL 

IMMEDIATELY following his graduation 
from the university, Charles entered the 
Harvard Law School, where his talents 
secured for him the same high rank that he 
had maintained in college. In fact, as he said 
in his early days at school, studies never fa- 
tigued him. The acquisition of knowledge was 
always an easy task, never a laborious one. 
It left him mentally fresh and eager for the 
consideration of the affairs of the world in gen- 
eral, and especially those of his own country. 
His letters to his mother during the three years 
in the Law School show how closely he was 
watching political developments in the nation 
and how firmly he was settling himself into the 
position he was to occupy in regard to political 
affairs and conduct in after-life. 

The Presidential campaign of 1872 had no 
charms for him. He was profoundly dissatis- 
fied with the administration of President Grant 
and qtiite imable to support the candidacy of 
Mr. Greeley. His state of mind was clearly 
revealed in a letter in October, 1872: 



44 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

"We are discussing just now in the Parlia- 
ment, a large debating society attached to the 
Law School, the question of whether Grant 
ought to be re-elected, and it is rather ajnusing 
to hear the excited harangues of his friends 
and enemies. I have not spoken, and do not 
expect to speak, for I have no enthusiasm either 
way and will not stultify myself by pretending 
to be moat anxious for what I at best regard 
as but the less of two evils. It is a pity Miss 
Susan [his mother] cannot be a law student, 
she would give it to these ex-rebels who come 
North to study law and poison the air with 
their treasonable utterances. Wouldn't she ? " 

Writing again on October 12, he gave a 
further indication of his indifferent attitude: 

"I see that the Greeleyites in Baltimore sig- 
nalized their procession by a couple of murders 
and some similar playful demonstrations. They 
were in a bad humor, I fancy, with the results 
of the recent election which have certainly 
dished the Sage of Chappaqua as thoroughly 
as any one could wish. We had an extraor- 
dinaiy turn out of the Grant men the other 
night. They rode round the streets to the num- 
ber of 300 or 400 dressed in white linen coats 
and bearing very long torches, and on a very 
dart night looked more like a procession of 



LAW SCHOOL 45 

ghosts than anything else that I can remember. 
Mr. Woods made us all illuminate our rooms 
as they went past, but I cannot say there was 
much enthusiasm in the household, except on 
the part of my young neighbor, the widow's 
son, whose patriotic ardour would have met 
with your entire approbation." 

Of the result of the election in November, 
he had this to say in a letter on November 9: 

"The election of Grant was what I expected, 
as did all men of common intelligence, after the 
October elections, but I was somewhat sur- 
prised at the immense majority, the largest 
known for many years at least. It is evident 
that Greeley brought weakness rather than 
strength to the Democracy, and that their grand 
surrender of principle to expediency at the 
Baltimore Convention was as unwise as im- 
moral." 

A letter written on February 22, 1873, is of 
especial interest, when taken in connection with 
those quoted above, as showing the thoroughly 
independent attitude toward political parties 
which he had already taken and which he main- 
tained unvarying throughout his career: 

"Today, although the birthday of the father 
of his Coimtiy, has not been celebrated in any 
remarkable manner in this vicinity. Indeed, 



46 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

I hardly think it would be veiy con^tent in 
a nation which tolerates sudi men as the Vice 
President, Senator Patterson, your friends 
Brooks and Oakes Ames to overflow with en- 
thusiasm for the man who 'owned up* when he 
barked his father's cherry tree. Anniversaries 
are generally joyous occasions, but one which 
si^gests a comparison between our present 
class of public men and those who founded 
this RepubKc and watched over its infancy, 
has a decidedly serious side." 

His standing in the Law School is qvdte clearly 
revealed in a letter under date of June Id, 1873: 

"I have passed three of my examinations 
pretty well, I fancy, and do not anticipate any 
trouble with the remaining two. You will be 
pleased to learn that one of my professors has 
espressed the opinion that I have a very clear 
head: do you not think he shows great pene- 
tration and soundness of judgment in his views 
on the subject?" 

In the same letter he expresses some decidedly 
emphatic views upon certain works of fiction, 
not restraining himself in his indignation from 
administering a sharp rebuke to the Archbishop 
of his beloved Catholic Church: 

" It would not be worth while to send me on 
the book lent, or to be lent, by the Archbishop 



LAW SCHOOL 47 

now, since I am to come on so soon, but I am 
veiy much surprised to learn that it is not a 
religious work, as I do not see common sense 
in his sending you any other. In your letter 
of the 30th ulto. you represent him as saying; 
*I will said you a book which will, I think, 
suit you: there is nothing mean, hidden or sub- 
servient in its tone — you vnll Uke it, I am sure.' 
Hie adjectives here used seem to be without 
meaning as applied to a novel, though veiy ap- 
plicable to a theological work. If the Arch- 
bishop, occupying a position of practical re- 
sponsibility, passes his time reading works of 
fiction and distributing the frivolous lumber 
with idiotic comments to ladies whose age and 
position in society ought to insure them more 
reasonable treatment, it is putting it mildly to 
say that he is unfit for his present place. I 
need not say that, if the book is really a novel, 
I shall not want it at all: I have no time to 
waste on it." 

This bitter hostility did not extend to all 
works of fiction, for he was extremely fond of 
the works of Dickens and Thackeray, and so 
devoted to "Pickwick" that he had it with 
him in college and carried it with bin- on all 
his travels till the day of his death. 



CHAPTER V 
CAREER AS A LAWYER 

BONAPARTE was graduated from the 
Law School in 1874. Retummg to 
Baltimore he was admitted to the bar 
in the autimm of that year and entered at once 
upon the practice of his profession. He took 
up his residence in the house which his father 
had built and in which he had been bom, at 
601 Park Avenue. 

He was at this time in the twenty-fourth 
year of his age, in vigorous health and possessed 
of ample means for leading a life of ease and 
pleasure. Such a life was not only open to him, 
but was fairly inviting him to enter it. He 
had every qualification for it — an unusually 
pleasing personality and intellectual gifts of a 
high order. Yet it seems never to have at- 
tracted him. There is no sign in his corre- 
spondence with his parents previous to this 
time that he ever debated, even in his own mind, 
whether he should lead this sort of life or one 
(rf active labor. The Puritan strain in his blood 
left him no choice in the matter. There was 



CAREER AS A LAWYER 49 

work to do in the world and he must bear his 
part in it. He was not only willing to bear his 
part but eager to do so. 

Yet his wealth was in some important re- 
spects a handicap in his profession. He neither 
advertised nor made any other effort to secure 
cHents, but was content to wait for clients to 
seek him. From the first those who came were 
persons in humble walks of life, of small means 
or of no means at all, who had been quick to 
grasp the notion that, being a man of wealth 
who did not need to earn money in the practice 
of his profession, he would aid them at much 
less cost than other lawyers. They came to 
him in steadily increasing numbers when it be- 
came known that he invariably granted their 
requests, when justice was on their side, giving 
his legal advice and services, usiially without 
remuneration, and not infrequently at con- 
siderable cost to himself. As was said of him 
by his associates at the bar at the time of his 
death: 

"No call of the helpless or of the wronged 
ever found him deaf to its appeal, and the more 
despearate the situation, the more forlorn the 
clienti the more strenuous was his effort and 
the more unsparing his fight to secure the rights 
be found jeopardized, or to ^orce atonement 



50 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

for injuries inflicted. To every client, whether 
of high estate or low, as to every cause, whether 
great or small, he gave equally of his time, his 
ability, his learning and his experience, and 
many were the seemingly hopeless situations 
from which he rescued those who had confided 
their misfortunes to his protection." 

A typical case was a suit for damages which 
he brought for a widow whose husband had 
been killed by falhng from the scaffold of a 
building. There were very fine points in it as 
to the liability of the contractors and Bona- 
parte told the widow that the chances of win- 
ning it were so slight that he could not advise 
her to make an effort to raise money to defray 
the costs. He undertook it at his own expense, 
fou^t it tenaciously, lost it in the lower court, 
carried it to the appeal court, and lost it again, 
and footed all the bills himself. He had many 
cases of this kind and soon came to be regarded 
as the friend and champion of those who were 
imable to help themselves. 

His humor was always cropping out. In 
a case in which he was seeking damages for 
a man upon whose head a brick had fallen from 
a chimney and had caused painful injury, the 
evidence showed that the man was probably 
intoxicated at the time. In his declaration of 



CAREER AS A LAWYER 51 

the facts Bonaparte said the man "had seated 
himself there for reasons of bodily convenience." 
No less notable than his humor was his alertness 
in court. Lawyers opposed to him were always 
watching him for surprises. They never knew 
what he was going to do next, for he was mar- 
vellously quick in detecting points which he 
mi^t turn to the benefit of his chents. 

His contemporaiy lawyers all bear evidence 
to his courage under all conditions and to his 
equanimity, no matter what efforts were made 
to provoke him. He was always as serene as 
he was persistent, and to his persistence, when 
he once entered upon a struggle, all men knew 
there was no Hmit. In one case involving in- 
directly his own property, which continued 
through several years, all efforts to induce him 
to desist or compromise were unavailing. VPhen 
his opponent said to him at the outset: "Mr. 
Bonaparte, I will see what Maryland justice 
will do for me." Bonaparte responded: "Very 
well; I guess you can find out." The ease was 
fought to the Supreme Court with a final ver- 
dict in Bonaparte's favor. He said of this case 
that the fun he was getting out <d it was worth 
all it cost him. 

In another case, in which the opposing lawyer 
had adopted unprofessional methods. Bona- 



52 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

parte had wished to bring charges to disbar 
him. The lawyer sent him an abusive letter 
which Bonaparte sent back to him with the 
inscription: "Returned to the coward who 
wrote it." That closed the incident. Bonaparte 
had taken boxing and fencing lessons while in 
Harvard and was prepared to defend himself 
against personal assault at any time. On one 
occasion when in a controversy the lie was 
passed a brief fistic encoimter followed, which 
was quickly arrested by friends. WTien Bona- 
parte was discovered later he was soothing a 
damaged eye with a lump of ice and laughing 
softly to himself. 

I am indebted to Mr. Paul M. Burnett of 
the Baltimore bar, who was closely associated 
with Mr. Bonaparte for many years in much 
of his most important litigation, for intimate 
and valuable information as to his ability and 
methods as a lawyer. "I regarded him," says 
Mr. Burnett, "as a resourceful and finished 
lawyer who had the ability at all times to pre- 
sent his cases in a masterful manner." 

Bonaparte's first client was a Mrs. Melissa 
Smith, who came near lasting him throughout 
his life. Mr. Burnett thus describes her and her 
proceedings: "She came to him with a case 
against a prominent old gentleman of Baiti- 



CAREER AS A LAWYER 58 

more. This Udy was a raw-boned North Caro- 
lina character, fearless and persistent. The 
energy with which the Utigation was prosecuted 
is said to have caused the premature death of 
the d^endant. Mrs. Smith then brought to 
Mr. Bonaparte some other deeds and title 
papers showing she had an interest in, or a 
'color of title to,* some mountain property in 
North Carolina. Mr. Bonaparte advised her 
that her title could only be established by pos- 
session. She then armed herself with two army 
revolvers and departed for the wilds of North 
Carolina. She arrived Sunday morning and 
took possession of the property while the occu- 
pants were at church. Upon their return they 
faced an irate female with a pistol in each hand 
warning them not to approach and claiming 
titie to the property. Litigation directed by 
Mr. Bonaparte followed, which resulted in 
establishing her claim, and she continued to 
live on the property until a few months before 
her death. She later became a professional 
litigant, encouraged by her successes with Mr. 
Bonaparte as her first attorney, and borrowed 
large sums of money from him by misrepre- 
sentation, giving inadequate security. Yet he 
never pressed her, never foreclosed on her prop- 
erty, never attempted to deprive her of her 



54 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

home or the land she possessed, and when she 
died he sent a special messenger to North Caro- 
lina to have her properly and decently buried 
at his own expense." 

Bonaparte's memory was the marvel of his 
contemporaries. Every Baltimore lawyer of 
his Ume will confirm what Mr. Burnett says 
on this point: 

"His apphcation of the law to the facts, or 
his ingenious arrangements of facts to suit his 
interpretation of the law, was as convincing as 
it was interesting. He had a fine legal mind 
and a most wonderful memory. He never for- 
got anything he had ever read. He never im- 
pressed me as being a student; he never gave 
any time to a study of the cases, yet he knew 
every one of them and the exact points decided. 
I never knew Iiim to hesitate in giving a refer- 
ence to a case deciding a point of law about 
which I might ask him, and he usually gave 
the number of the volume in which the case 
could be found and frequently the page. I 
never knew him to prepare a case in advance, 
always relying upon his wonderful memory for 
cases to support his theory of the law. Fre- 
quently in the midst of a case he would &sk for 
a volume. TOth the greatest ease he could 
pick out just what was needed — his memory 
never failed him. 



CAREER AS A LAWYER 55 

"In an important case involving the title to 
a strip of some of the most valtiable land in 
the City, a volume of testimony had been taken 
and the case was ready for trial when Mr. Bona- 
parte was asked to assist in the argument. He 
knew nothing of the testimony other than a 
short statement of the facts leading up to the 
filing of the suit. He requested me to prepare 
a brief with references to cases supporting our 
theory of the law. The case involved title by 
prescription, ancient lights, abandonment of 
easements, water ways and sewers, a branch of 
the law very few lawyers are ever called upon 
to examine. I spent several days and nights 
with one of our most competent real estate 
lawyers looking up the law, and we thought we 
had collected all there was on the subject. Mr. 
Bonaparte examined our brief, and began an 
independent examination of the digests one- 
half hour before the argument began and in 
that time collected a number of new cases ex- 
act^ in point, supporting eveiy argument he 
advanced, and winning his case. His argtunent 
was most wonderful in that he was compelled 
to recite facts disclosed only in the large volume 
of testimony which I knew he had never read — 
yet he made no mistakes. His argument was 
clear, forceful, concise and convincing, and 



56 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ndther was a point missed nor an advantage 
neglected." 

An instance in point is cited by Mr. Burnett: 
"While Mr. Bonaparte was Attorney Gen- 
eral, during Roosevelt's Administration, he 
argued many important cases, including a num- 
ber under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. No 
great amount of study or preparation was ever 
given to any of these cases. They were usually 
prepared for trial and the arguments formulated 
on the train between Baltimore and Washing- 
ton. I recall a case argued in our Court of Ap- 
peals about this time. He had requested me 
to open with the facts about which he knew 
very little, and said he would close with the 
law. The Court was late in beginning our case, 
and as he was compelled to be in the Supreme 
Court the next day, he, at the last moment, 
reversed the order of things, and told me he 
would open with the facts and I could close 
with the law. How he became acquainted 
with the facts sufficiently to make a two hours' 
argument and steal all my thunder has remained 
a mystery to this day. 

"Taking a case and doing his utmost for his 
client," [continues Mr. Burnett], "was to him 
a sacred duty. He told me once that when he 
took the oath upon his admission to the Bar, 



CAREER AS A LAWYER 67 

H became his duty to represent a client who 
employed him to the best of his ability r^ard- 
less of his personal feelings in the matter. In 
criminal cases he believed it his duty to do the 
utmost for his client, for even if he were guilty 
he was entitled to all the advantage offered by 
the law. I recall several very interesting crim- 
inal cases which Mr. Bonaparte won. In fact, 
I do not think he ever lost any of the criminal 
cases in which he was employed. On one occa- 
sion his services were sought by a society of 
Italians, who desired that one of th«r number 
be defended on the charge of assault of a par- 
ticularly aggravated character. Mi. Bonaparte 
named his fee. The next day it was paid in 
small change piled on his desk. It was evident 
that Italian vendors of fruit and Italian trades- 
men had contributed their small change to the 
fund. Mr. Bonaparte never labored harder in 
his life than at the trial. His defence of that 
Italian was brilliant. He never lost an advan- 
tage, never gave an inch, and never allowed the 
jury to think for one moment that he was not a 
firm believer in the innocence of his cKent. The 
jury promptly rendered a verdict of acquittal. 
Hiis same spirit characterized all his efforts 
and in a case in which he defended a man tried 
on the charge of embezzlement, in which he 



68 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

also secured an acquittal, the Commonwealth 
Attorney afterwards told me, it was the most 
brilliant defence he had ever heard in the Crim- 
inal Court, and that the trial of that case had 
been an education to him. 

''Mr. Bonaparte did not like divorce cases, 
but he was employed in them occasionally. 
I recall one which was prominent in the Courts 
for years. He represented the outraged wife 
who was being sued by her husband. Mr. Bona- 
parte never fought harder than he did for that 
woman. That case was a continuous perform- 
ance and could always be reHed on for excite- 
ment. It was in 'full force and effect,* and 
proceeding at a lively and exciting pace, when 
one of the participants died. No person ever 
had a more conscientious and devoted repre- 
sentative than his client had in that cause. 

"His keen sense of humor always enabled 
him to enjoy the fiumy and at times ridiculous 
situations which would occur in his trial prac- 
tice. I recall a damage suit against a railroad 
in which our client was considerably damaged. 
Because of the crowded condition of the Court 
Dockets the case was pending for a year or 
more. It was finally called one Spring after- 
noon, and our client — a middle aged lady, had 
sufficiently recovered to appear in new Spring 



CAREER AS A LAWYER fiO 

finery. Mr. Bonaparte laughingly remarked 
tliat if she appeared before the jury the next 
day in that attire, she would lose her case. 
Some one repeated his remarks to her, and he 
was convulsed when she appeared the next 
morning dr^sed in shabby black and acting 
the part of a confirmed invaUd. The verdict 
of the jiiry was substantial damages." 

Of Bonaparte's cheerfxd and winning person- 
ality, Mr. Burnett writes: 

"If Mr. Bonaparte ever became depressed 
from wony or disappointment, he never per- 
mitted it to change or affect his disposition. 
He looked on the bright side of everything, 
smiled at misfortune and laughed at adversity. 
He never permitted the most serious incidents 
of business to disturb his bright and happy dis- 
position. He had trained himself to be an op- 
timist; he had perfect control of himself, was 
never angry, never showed resentment, and 
was on all occasions the polished gentleman." 

A striking tribute to Bonaparte's, abilities as 
a lawyer was paid by Mr. William Cabell Bruce, 
one of the leaders of the Baltimore bar and an 
author of distinction, at the memorial services 
which were held by the bench and bar of the 
city at the time of his death: 

"No one, I am sure, was ever brought into 



60 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

contact with Mr. Bonaparte as a lawyer without 
realizing that he was an uncommonly able one, 
well worthy to become, as he became, an At- 
torney General of the United States, He was 
thorotighly conversant with all the learning of 
his vocation; he always came fully prepared 
to the trial of his cases; he never drafted a 
declaration or a bill in chanceiy, or a brief, 
except with the most vigilant and painstaking 
care, and but few of his contemporaries had the 
same power of presenting their propositions in 
language as fluent, clear and precise as his. I 
recall ihe fact that a few years ago, a very in- 
telligent and cultivated member of the Maiy- 
land Bar, who had but recently taken up his 
residence in Baltimore, approached me just 
after Mr. Bonaparte had concluded an argu- 
ment in an ordinary election case in the Court 
of Appeals and asked me who he was, saying 
that in his opinion this at^ument was one of 
the strongest and most striking that he had 
ever heard in a court of justice." 



CHAPTER VI 

MORALITY IN POLITICS 

"^"X THILE the law was Bonaparte's chosen 
Y T Pi^f^^ioi* ^^^ while he was destined 
to attain eminence and honor in the 
practice of it, the Kfe struggle into which he 
threw his whole heart and mind was that which 
he outlined in that letter to his mother, quoted 
on a preceding page, in which he had expressed 
the hope and belief that at the moment of his 
entrance into hfe he might "see the commence- 
ment of an agitation which will end in placing 
morality and intelligence among the qualities 
which the American people demand in those 
who govern them." He not only saw the be- 
ginning of that agitation but was one of its 
prime movers. He was a pioneer in the struggle 
for civil-service reform, and one of its most 
eloquent and compeUing champions for more 
than a quarter of a century, not resting for a 
moment, till the fight was won. The key-note 
of all his advocacy was expressed in his earliest 
utterances and constantly reiterated in all sub- 
sequent ones: "The principle of civil service 
reform is one of high moraUty." "Civil service 
zcfoim is the application of morality and com- 



62 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

mon sense to the dioice and tenuie of public 
servants." 

It was the moral side of the ease that he, 
with the stem, inflexible zeal of the Puritan 
strain in his blood, set forth on all occasions. 
There were other sides of the question but this 
was always the first. There were no two sets 
of morals, one for private and one for poHtical 
and pubUc life. A man could not be honest 
and respectable in private life and at the same 
time favor, or defend or profit by disreputable 
and corrupt methods in politics. "Honest 
men may honestly differ," he said, "as to pro- 
tection and free trade, as to federal supremacy 
and State rights, as to gold currency and silver 
cxurency and paper currency, but honest m«i 
all think alike as to a free ballot and a fair count. 
If any man helps in, or winks at, or covers over 
any kind of cheating at the polls, ih&t man is 
not a misinformed or misguided fellow citizen, 
to be argued with and shown his error. He is a 
scoimdrel, and should be called a scoundrel and 
dealt with as a scoxmdrel by eveiy honest man." 

He stood inflexibly with Lowell: 

"In vain we call old notions fudge 
And bend our conscience to our dealing. 
Hie Ten Commandments will not budge. 
And stealing will continue stealing." 



MORALITY IN POLITICS 63 

He was no preacher against sin, but a fearless 
denouncer of sinners. He did not rest with 
pointing out corruption in political methods, 
but he named the men who committed the acts 
of corruption. Rascals in all ages have viewed 
with complacency denunciation of sinners in 
the abstract; it is only when the preacher points 
the accusing finger and says: "Thou art the 
man !" that the trouble begins. Then all sinners 
agree in saying that the preacher is indxilging 
in "personaUties," and there is nothing so rep- 
rehensible in the eyes of a sinner as personali- 
ties when applied to himself. Bonaparte de- 
scribed political rascality and named the men 
who were guilty of or responsible for it, without 
fear or favor. 

He had been only a short time in politics 
before he won a reputation for never letting up 
after he had once begun a fight when he be- 
lieved it was against wrong. In this tenacity 
of purpose and absolute fearlessness tbere was 
revealed both his Corsican and his Puritan 
ancestry. 

Dining the twenty years of his long fight 
against political corruption in Baltimore and 
Maryland it was only necessary to announce 
that Charles J. Bonaparte was to speak at a 
public meeting to have the hall crowded with 



64 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

men and women. A common expression heard 
on the streets at such a time was: "Let's go 
down to-night and hear Bonaparte give it to 
'em." And he never disappointed them. He 
"gave it to 'em" in his own peculiar way. He 
was entirely at home either on the platform or 
before a jury — always deKberate in manner^ 
and always wearing the peculiar "Bonaparte 
smile." But that smile was a terror to the 
poUtidans whom he was wont to assail> for 
they knew what was behind it in the mouth of 
the speaker. With the most cheerfiJ of faces, 
and in the manner of a man relating a pleasing 
anecdote, he proceeded to describe their ne- 
farious dealings and pin upon them the brand 
of their sins. His familiarity with their records 
from the moment of their entiy upon political 
activity, and his marvellous memory in retain- 
ing the minutest details of their proceedings, 
might well terrify them. There was not an act 
in the careers of the diief boss. Senator Gor- 
man, or of his subordinates, that he did not 
know all about, and that he did not set forth 
with his whimsical smile and his quiet, biting 
humor for the edification of their fellow citizens. 
It was all done so gently and cheerfully that at 
times it even deceived its victims, for it is re- 
corded of one of the Gorman "heelers" that 



MORALITY IN POLITICS 65 

he was heard saying to another after a meeting: 
"Wasn't Bonaparte great?" To which the 
second responded: "Yes. If he wasn't for 
civil service I'd vote for him for anything." 
Yet cheerful and quiet as his oratory was^ it 
was having so steady and powerful an influence 
in educating public opinion to a proper realiza- 
tion of the character of the business which the 
men whom he assailed were conducting that 
their downfall was only a question of time. 



CHAPTER Vn 

FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT IN 
MARYLAND 

IN 1874, when Bonaparte began the pracUoe 
of law, conditions in Maryland had the well- 
estsblished reputation of being the most 
corrupt in the land. In the city of Baltimore 
they rivalled the conditions in New York City 
during the worst days of Tammany rule. The 
designation "thoroughly rotten" applied truth- 
fully to them. Bonaparte himself, in an article 
published in the Forum magazine in March, 
1892, described the situation and the causes 
which had created it in the explicit manner 
diaracteristic of him: 

"An inveterate malady of the body politic 
in Maryland is the indulgeace of public opinion 
for offences against the freedom and purity of 
the suffrage. It is safe to say that a majority 
of those there holding prominent positions of 
public trust axe widely and reasonably believed 
to have at some stage of their political career 
either taken part in fraud, bribery or violence 
at legal or prinuuy elections, or knowing ac- 



GOOD GOVERNMENT 67 

cepted o£5ces or nommations secured by such 
means. And of the really influential politicians, 
whether in or out of office, the big and little 
'bosses' and members of 'rings' of various 
diameters, who are the State's true rulers, every 
one had been more or less implicated in scandals 
of this character, and nearly eveiy one notori- 
ously owes his power to dexterity and success 
in falsifying the expression of the people's or 
of his party's will at the polls. 

"Many of these men have criminal records; 
those who have not are indebted for immimity, 
not to any public belief in their innocence, not 
even, in most cases, to the want of tangible evi- 
dence against them, but simply to th«r 'pull.* 
Whether technically criminals or not, th^ are 
the allies and patrons of habitual lawbreakers. 
Try to prosecute a gambler or a brothel-keeper 
or offender against the liquor laws, and you are 
morally certain to find him shielded by the in- 
fluence of some politician.'* 

In an address which he delivered at about 
the same lime he said: 

"It is no ^aggeration of luiguage to say 
that saloons and gambling houses and brothds 
are here nurseries for 'statesmen,* that the ac- 
tive hostility of their keepers is, if not fatal, 
at least a grave impediment to success in public 



68 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

life, and that men and women who gain their 
living by habitually breaking the laws have a 
potent voice in selecting the pubhc servants, 
who make, interpret and execute those laws. 
The proprietor of a 'dive' may be of one party 
or the other; neither enjoys a monopoly of this 
desirable constituency, but, whatever his poli- 
tics, he is almost certainly a power at the prinm- 
ries and a factor in the vote of his precinct; 
only practical experience can teach how much 
these facts aggravate the task of bringing him 
to punishment." 

He quoted from a debate in Congress in 
April, 1794, to show that at that early period 
the ballot-box had been greatly corrupted, and 
the free exercise of the franchise had been pre- 
vented. The corruption of later times he at- 
tributed mainly to the peculiar situation of 
Maryland as a Border State in the Civil War. 
"During the war," he said; "Maiyland was 
virtually a conquered territory. There existed, 
especially in the western and central counties 
and in Baltimore, a strong and highly respect- 
able Union sentiment, but, even where they 
were most numerous. Union men were probably 
a minority, and there is little doubt that, had 
she been left to herself, the State would have 
drifted into fellowship with her revolted sisters. 



GOOD GOVERNMENT 69 

But she was not, and, in the nature of things, 
she could not be left to herself. Before an ordi- 
nance of secession could be passed or any overt 
act of rebellion (beyond a mere street riot on 
April 19, 1861) could be perpetrated, all points 
of strategic value had been occupied by the 
national forces, and a strong garrison posted 
where it should control every important centre. 

"In name, therefore, Maryland was a loyal 
state, and, as a matt^* of fact she contributed 
her fair share, both in men and in mon^ to 
the war; but none knew better than MJr. Lin- 
coln and his advisers that this outward loyalty 
expressed by no means the true sentiments of 
a majority among her people.'* 

To put the minority in possession of the state 
government it was necessary to virtually dis- 
^nchise the hostile majority through arbitrary 
arrests, deportations beyond the lines, presence 
of military at the polls, and other like means, 
which were defended by the argument solus 
populi suprema lex. These proceedings created 
in the suppressed majority a sense of unjust 
treatment and a determinaticm to retaliate 
when occasion arose which destroyed respect 
for law and bred a readiness to adopt question- 
able means to regain their rights. "In this 
state of public feeling the constitutional con- 



70 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

vention of 1864 was called. It was not a really 
representative body, and its high-handed ac- 
tion, not only in providing for the disfrandtise- 
ment of sympathisers with the rebellion, but 
also in app^ing in advance these disqualifica- 
tions to those who should vote upon the ac- 
ceptance or rejection of the constitution it pre- 
pared, can be justified, if at all, only as a war 
measure in a time of revolution. Even with the 
disqualifications enforced, it is estremely doubt- 
ful whether the constitution was not after all 
rejected on a fair coimt of the votes actually 
cast." 

In conclusion, Bonaparte with that fair- 
mindedness and freedom from partisan bias 
which were his distinguishing characteristics, 
said: 

"The Maryland democracy returned to power 
bound in consistency to condone corrupt bar- 
gains in politics and to look with leniency (m 
offidal perjury and the disregard by officers of 
re^tration and election of their own plain and 
sworn duty under the law and of the safe- 
guards for preserving the suffrage to those only 
legally entitled to exercise it. It is not sur- 
prising that from this origin to its renewed 
ascendency should flow as consequences the 
gradual usurpation of power within the party 



GOOD GOVERNMENT 71 

by men not over nice in matters of morality 
or honor, that complaints of fraud and disorder 
at Sections should once more become chronic, 
or that on at least two occasions (at the general 
election of 1875 and at the municipal election 
of 1885) the people's will should have been de- 
feated by the misconduct of the officers ap- 
pointed to raster it." 

The condition of political affairs whidb existed 
at the time of the general election in 1875 was 
graphically described by Bonaparte in an ad- 
dress which he delivered in 1895: 

"Through its absolute control of the state 
and municipal patronage the Democratic Ring 
was able to maintain in Baltimore at the 
people's cost a small standing army of experts 
in election frauds and professional ruffians, un- 
res^redly subject to its orders and prepared to 
furnish any reasonable majority which could 
be required for its safety under normal con- 
ations; whilst it could likewise assure them 
almost certain immunity from punishment for 
their crimra committed in its interest." 

It was the exercise of these powers over the 
election in 1875 which defeated several le^- 
lative candidates who retained Bonaparte as 
counsel and contested the election before the 
le^slature. In arguing these cases he made 



72 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

his first entrance upon the long struggle for 
honest polities and honest conduct in public 
office. As the legislators before whom he made 
his argument had themselves profited by the 
frauds, they decided against him, but he proved 
before the public the existence of the frauds, 
and thus scored the first of a long series of moral 
victories which resulted ultimately in the over- 
throw of the Ring. From this time he became 
the leader of the reformers and pursued the 
same method after each election. For twenty 
years the fight was kept up with unflagging 
zeal and unfaltering purpose. The reformers 
went down in defeat in election after election, 
but after every election, Bonaparte laid the 
evidence of frauds before the public, proved 
the case, and while he could get no redress from 
the legislature or the courts, he convicted the 
crhninals before the people and thus created 
popular sentiment against them and their acts. 
His associates and followers steadily increased 
untU they became formidable in numbers and 
quahty . Chief among them were Severn Teackle 
WalUs and John K. Cowen, two Democrats of 
the highest character, and legal and oratorical 
abihty of the first order, each of whom had a 
large and devoted following. The three men 
formed as powerful a trio of leaders as ever 
blessed a misgoverned city. 



GOOD GOVERNMENT 73 

In 1881, Bonaparte assisted in founding the 
Civil Service Reform League of Maryland and 
the National Civil Service Reform League and 
was a recognized leader in both organizations 
till his death. In 1885, in company with Mr. 
Wallis^, he was one of the founders of the Balti- 
more Reform League and became its chairman. 
In the same year he was one of the founders of 
a weekly paper in Baltimore, called The Civil 
Service Reformer, which was the official organ 
of the Maryland Civil Service League, and to 
which he was a regular contributor as well as 
its largest financial supporter. It was edited 
till 1889 by Francis Carey and subsequently by 
John Helmsley Johnson. In 1892, it was merged 
with Good Government, the official organ of the 
National Civil Service Reform League, and 
ceased to exist as a separate publication. 

All these agencies were of powerful assistance 
in the long struggle which was an educational 
crusade for arousing the public conscience. 
llie battle was won in the election of 1895. 
An independent press had been developed in 
the meantim£ and the reformers, with Bonaparte 
at their head, made an enthusiastic and deter- 
mined campaign. Bonaparte had been ap- 
pointed to the only public office he had ever held 
in the ci^ or state, that of a supervisor of dec- 



74 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

tioiis. The Democratic governor was reluctant 
to appoint him, but consented to do so when 
thousands of citizens at a pubUc meeting had 
risen to their feet and demanded it. This ac- 
tion had been taken after Bonaparte, who was 
seated on the platform but had not been ex- 
pected to speak, arose, in response to calls for 
him horn all parts of the house, and advamung 
to the front said in his peculiar manner: *'I 
hope you will allow me to take my seat on the 
platform. I am sure I shall not be permitted 
to take my seat on the Board of Elections." 
It was the briefest speech he ever made and 
the most eflFective. 

Bonaparte was quick and resolute in realizing 
the possibilities of the office. He was associated 
with two Democrats who outvoted him on 
every occasion. At the first meeting of the 
board he moved that newspaper men be ad- 
mitted to the proceedings, but was promptly 
voted down. He mentioned the fact to the 
public and an mdignant protest from the press 
immediately followed. He recommended the 
dismissal of certain dishonest election officials. 
When this was voted down, he furnished the 
newspapers with proof of the unworthiness of 
those officiab. He next proposed the dismissal 
of the counsel of the board, stating in a reso- 



GOOD GOVERNMENT 75 

luticm the evidence which showed the counsel's 
unfitness for the position because of his cor- 
rupt character. When this was voted down, 
the text of the resolution was published in the 
newspapers, and his two Democratic assodates 
were convicted of holding an unfit man in the 
position, thereby incriminating themselves. On 
the d^ preceding election the two Democratic 
members issued their usual perfunctory and in- 
sincere instructions to voters. Bonaparte issued 
separate ones of his own, in which he explained 
the law, stated in detail the penalties for viola- 
tions of it and the plans that had been made 
for detecting violators and showed the strong 
probabilities that th^ would be prosecuted and 
sent to prison. 

During the campaign, the Baltimore Reform 
League, under the direction of its counsel, John 
C. Rose, who in 1910 became the Presiding 
Judge of the U. S. District Court in Maryland, 
piuged the registration books of the names of 
thousands of fraudulent voters who as repeaters 
had been of great service in carrying elections 
for the Ring. The result of these combined 
efforts was that in 1895 there was an honest 
election for the first time in a quarter of a cen- 
tury or more, and the reformers were victorious 
in ^both Baltimore and Maryland. During 



76 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

the long struggle which resulted in this vic- 
tory, a reform ballot law of the Australian 
type, a civil-service law, and a corrupt-practice 
act had been added to the statutes of Mary- 
land. A great triumph for "high morality" 
in politics had been won, and by unanimous 
consent the chief honors for the victory rested 
with Charles J. Bonaparte. As one of the 
speakers at the memorial services which followed 
his death, Mr. George R. Gaither, said: "The 
political life of Baltimore and Maryland is im- 
measurably purer and better today than it was 
fifty years ago, and that progress is largely due 
to Charles J. Bonaparte and the men who fought 
with him." 



CHAPTER Vm 

HIGH STANDARDS IN NATIONAL 
POLITICS 

BONAPARTE'S labors for higher stand- 
ards of pubhc hfe were by no means 
confined to his native city and state. 
The National Civil Service R^onn League 
and the like league in Maryland were formed 
in the same year, 1881, and he was a founder 
in both. From the first he became one of the 
most active leaders and influential orators in 
the National League, and during the quarter 
of a century that followed his voice was heard 
in all parts of the Union, and it was the same 
voice everywhere, lifted always for morality 
and intelligence in poUtics and public service. 
The dominant note in his addresses can be best 
revealed by brief quotations from some of the 
later ones. 

Speaking before the CathoUc University of 
America, on November 5, 1891, he made this 
reply to the notorious remark of a one-lime 
quite prominent Senator from Kansas: 

"A little more than a year ago a well known 
public man said in a speech widely published: 



78 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

'The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no 
place in a political campaign.* So far is it from 
true that the system of Christian morality, 
compendiously expressed in the Decalogue and 
the Golden Rule, has no place in political life 
of a self-governing people, that this is the very 
field of all others for its appHcation. '^ght- 
eousness exalteth a nation,' whatever its form 
of government, for righteousness is strength; 
but a nation that rules itself must be righteous, 
or else it will either cease to rule itself or cease 
to be a nation." 

In like vein he said in an address in Novem- 
ber. 1922: 

"A stoiy is told of a well-known professional 
politician in my native city, who, notwithstand- 
ing a very humble origin and a very imperfect 
education, has acquired great influence and 
accumulated considerable wealth by the merits 
and practices conmion and approved among 
those of his calling. He professes the same form 
of Christianity that I do, and, on his return 
from Church early one Simday morning, is 
said to have been met by a newspaper reportw, 
who remarked to him, in substance: 'Mr. A., 
I do not understand how so regular an attendant 
at Church as you are can be also so great an 
adept in "stuffing" ballot boxes, "fixing" juries 



HIGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 79 

and witnesses and "plugging" coiporations.* 
*Mr. 6.,' replied the statesman, 'I never mix 
up politics and religion.' 

"A Christian man cannot draw a sponge 
over his record as a member of civil society; 
a Christian Church cannot escape dealing with 
evils such as these by closing her eyes to their 
existence. Men like the one quoted have made 
their trade so dangerous, so odious, so noisome 
that against it every force in our midst that 
makes for righteousness will be directed to- 
morrow, if it is not today." 

Speaking in May, 1895, of the course that 
reformers should follow, he showed the thor- 
oughly practical nature of his attitude in the 
matter, for be did not belong to what Roose- 
velt was wont to call the "limatic fringe" of 
reformers: 

"Those who have leisure and learning and a 
facile pen can with great profit to all of us write 
monographs and pamphlets and magazine arti- 
cles on proportional representation and the 
referendum and the Gothenbui;g liquor s^tem 
and their work will tell in time, but, while they 
read and think and write, this rascal has been 
nominated by a packed convention chosen at 
fraudulent primaries, and that rascal has been 
caught with his arms up to his elbow in the 



80 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

people's money box, and the ordinaiy every- 
day citizen is saying, with our old friend Tweed: 
'Well, what are you, you reformers, going to 
do about it?' The question is a fair one, for 
in the cases supposed, and they occur daily, 
there is something to be done, and, I must add, 
that reformers are too often prone to overlook 
this necessity. The beauties visible to the e^e 
of faith in the more or less distant day of prac- 
tical acceptance, in no wise help us to deal with 
the scoundrel who yonder winks and leers at 
us while he pockets the salary we pay. He 
must be handled now^ not in the future Golden 
Age, and if we wait until he and his kind have 
voluntarily made their own prosperity and 
continued existence impossible, we shall wait 
long and very much to his and their satisfac- 
tion." 

He was a firm believer in the dictum that 
every nation of free people gets the kind of 
government it deserves. In a speech on March 
34, 1897, he said: 

"To have a good popular government we 
must, first of all, and before all else, have good 
citizens. Burke's well-known words have been 
often quoted; they have been even quoted 
more than once by me; but we cannot too 
steadily remember, that, as he said, 'there never 



HIGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 81 

was long a corrupt government of a virtuous 
people.' When we find any self-governing com- 
munity afflicted with misgovenunent, we can 
safely and fairly beKeve that it does not deserve 
a better fate. It may indeed vnsk to be well 
governed, just as many a drunkard, in his 
seasons of repentance and headache, wishes he 
were temperate, just as many a defaulter, as 
yet undetected, in saner moments wishes he 
could repay what he has taken, and feel himself 
once more an honest man. But, as such men 
do not wish hard enough to keep away, the 
first, from the bar, the second, from the faro 
table or Wall Street, so such a Nation, State 
or City does not wish hard enough for good 
government to make bad government impos- 
sible." 

He returned to this subject in his Phi Beta 
Kappa address on "Our National Dangers," at 
Harvard University on June 29, 1899, saying: 

"Washington affirms that 'virtue or morality 
is a necessary spring of popular government.* 
We have abandoned the government he founded 
to the Boss and the Ring. These powers of 
darkness would have men ignorant and vicious, 
pressed by want and rebellious to law, because 
of such men they make their dupes and tools. 
They are the common enemies of all who war 



82 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

against an and suSering, for amid a people 
happy through righteousQess th^ coidd not 
live. Th^ protect and foster eveiy de^ra<^g 
pursuit, every noxious induatiy, every dan- 
gerous and shameful calling, as training-schools 
for their followers and resources for their 6sc. 
We know them and their works, yet we endure 
them as our rulers, and we have endured them 
for many weaiy years: it is as true now as it 
was wh^ Burke said it, that 'there never was 
long a corrupt government of a virtuous 
people.' " 

His familiarity with the characters <^ his 
favorite author, Dickens, is revealed in a pas- 
sage from a speech on February 3, 1900: 

"My subject today was suggested to my 
mind by the statement attributed to an eminent 
personage that he 'had rather be a patriot than 
a pessimist.* If our public men, and especially 
its alleged author, could be reasonably supposed 
to always use words with a clear and adequate 
idea of their meanings, this remark would not, 
indeed, merit your attention, unless perhaps 
for being unusually silly; since, in the first 
place, no sensible man ever wished to be a pessi- 
mist, any more than he wished to be a dys- 
peptic, and, secondly, pessimism is no more 
inconsistent with patriotism than it is with 



HIGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 83 

piety or good morals: a Mrs. Gummidge of 
either sex, 'a lone, lorn creetur' with whom 
'eveiythink goes contrary' often bemoans with 
a perfectly genuine grirf the countiy's rapid 
progress towards Mr. Mantalini's 'demnition 
bow-wows.' " 

One of the most thoughtful and carefully 
prepared of his many addresses, and one in 
which he reached a high level of eloquence was 
that delivered at Concord, Mass., on the lS5th 
anniversary of the Concord fight, April 19, 
1900. He had regarded the invitation to make 
it as an honor, and had accepted it with pleasure 
as giving him an opportunity to express senti- 
ments which were near to his heart. Its open- 
ing passage was a fitting key-note of what fol- 
lowed: 

"To-day we look to the rock whence we were 
hewn: we praise famous men and our fathers 
that begat us, because, through what they did 
and suffered on this day, the American Nation 
was bom. On the vigil of that great birthday 
the dwellers in this land were, in truth, 'Eng- 
lidmien of New England:' ere the next sunset 
they owned and assured to tibelr children hopes 
and memories, thoughts of pride and sadness, 
in bri^f a national consciousness, wherein Eng- 
lishmen could have no part: on that evening 



84 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

EnglishmeD in New England were strangers 
fuid demies. The story which gives meaning 
to our meeting is now an old story, but again 
it claims a hearing, for it tells us how and why 
we are Americans." 
After reviewing the battle he continued: 
"From the story of Concord Fight our 
thoughts turn naturally to the American Revo- 
lution. To form any fair judgment of its fruits 
to mankind, much more to adequately discuss 
them, one should live later than our time or 
be gifted with seraphic foresight. The myriad 
streams of human destiny flowing from that 
fountain-head may have but b^un their course; 
as they bear us and our brethren onwards, we 
may guess and dream and prophesy whither 
they sweep us, but, as to the appointed end and 
way the wisest man can but answer with the 
prophet and the wisest will be first to thus an- 
swer: 'O Lord God! Thou knowest.' We may, 
however, note its characteristics, for the world 
has now seen many revolutions, and among 
these that one wrought by our fathera, that 
one which fashioned us as we are made, had 
features which set it apart from others, and 
to which we, at least, may with profit pay heed. 
"First, let us bear in mind that it was pre- 
eminently practical; those who fought and 



HIGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 85 

suffered to consummate it knew precisely for 
what they fought and suffered. There was 
nothing gorgeously, seductively vague in their 
aims; their goal was seen clearly, not shadowed 
by clouds. To a sentimentalist the quarrel 
mi^t seem commonplace, even sordid; it was 
a question of money; should the King put his 
hand io their pockets? That was the issue. 
Doubtless they spent to resist him a thousand 
pounds for every penny be asked of them, but 
yet the American Revolution was essentially a 
revolution of taxpayers. 

"Secondly, our Revolution was, perhaps, of 
all those known to history the most conserva- 
tive. Our fathers ceased to be Englishmoi 
because thus only could they safeguard to them- 
selves and their children the traditional rights 
of Englishmen which their fathers had be- 
queathed them. . . . They were no reckless in- 
novators; ancient customs should prevail, but, 
with men of their blood and speech, freedom 
is the most ancient of customs. Of time im- 
memoiial Englishmen had ever claimed and 
exercised the right to tax themselves; they 
had given of their substance to their rulers as 
their own conscience and best judgment bade 
them; were Englishmen less apt for freedom 
when they had crossed the seas? Was their 



86 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

birthright lost on the passage, or were they 
unworthy to rule themselves because, unaided, 
th^ had subdued a wilderness and added a 
realm to the King's dominions? King George 
was the innovator; the^'' fought against him to 
defend nghts consecrated by antiquity, no less 
than by justice. And, remember well, thegr 
fouj^t for their rights, not the rights of all men 
or of any other men." 

His own liberal religious opinions and com- 
plete absence from bigotiy were revealed in 
these passages: 

"Of yet more momoit is it to note that the 
American Revoluti<Hi was the woric of men 
whose lives were moulded by bdkf in revealed 
region. Wben Amos Mehin rang the alarm 
bcj], the first man to answw lus summons was 
the uinbteft TVilGam Emersnn, his gun on his 
sthoulder: lus a<4 bort' t<«tuaony to the patriot- 
ism of lu$ vlass and their pkuudcdcc in the 
«$sni«,«i <iif piofHtUr n$bt»: thren^s^MMit Xew 
EmsUiwJ «W>«t <Yv«^^ |«ilpit was a rostium, 
evwj" |>K«K-)i«<' « liiKww- <4' tW pwfifc. And 
»s^ in lltt» M«^^ iW<y $U^ l«it * hand 

a»tl vN\Mt>^-«t^ tW wft^-rt s"*f yirty- ^^ 

M' «« IM^^\«M- ^ #1^ 4Jt«Mk vc tMm. He 



mCH POLITICAL STANDARDS 87 

had not, indeed, seen the Reign of Terror or 
the Commune, but, before their day, he knew 
their lesson. For him it was no matter of doubt 
that escept the Lord build the house, they labor 
in vain that build It; except the Lord keep the 
city, the watchman waketh in vain; he dis- 
owned his King on earth in the name of the 
King of Kings in Heaven. 

"A dgnificant contrast may be here noted. 
The men who resisted Charles I were inspired 
by a profound and hvely religious faith; this 
is no less true of those who resisted George m. 
But the English Civil War Inflamed fanaticism 
and sectarian hatred, and ended, at least for 
the moment. In spiritual tyranny; the Amer- 
ican Revolution served, more, perhaps, than 
any other event of history, to rebuke intoler- 
ance and soften bigotiy; among its fruits was 
and remains a freedom to worship God sur- 
passing any which the Old World had known 
until taught by the example of the New." 

Bonaparte's opinion of "Bosses" was revealed 
in a speech on April 1, 1901: 

"What then is a boss? When our presoit 
Vice-President was asked by a reporter some 
years ago whether he had anything to say re- 
garding the results of a certain election, he is 
sud to have replied: * Nothing fit for publica- 



88 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

tion.* I suspect most persons, or, at least, most 
good citizens, would answer my question in 
the character of language which might have 
served to relieve his feelings, and I should be 
lenient towards vituperation, or even profanity 
in this connection were they coupled with ac- 
curacy in expression as the fruit of clearness of 
thought. Unfortunately a great many people 
understand enough about bosses in general and 
yet more about some boss in particular to swear 
fervently at him and them who would yet be 
puzzled to say precisdy what they meant by 
the name." 

He did not even spare the President of the 
United States, when he thought he deserved 
censure. Speaking on April S6, 1893, he said: 

"The President as first servant of the people 
(looses, or ought to choose, an immense nimi- 
ber of under-servants to help him in his work. 
Their offices no more belong to him than does 
the foundation of the White House; and he 
has as little li^t, either in law or morals, to 
place one at the disposal of a complaisant Con- 
gressman, as to reward tfae latter for his vote 
with a piano or a painting for which the treasuiy 
has paid. Bishop Latimer called bribeiy 'a 
princely kind of thieving*; it may have seemed 
so in his day, but I, at least, see little room for 



fflGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 89 

the adjective, when the President of the United 
States uses his patronage as a huge corruption 
fund to repay official perjuiy and breach of 
public trust in the National Legislature." 

His views on woman suffrage, expressed on 
June 4, 1904, will strike many observers as 
prophetic after a few years of experience of its 
operation: 

"You have all heard more or less discussion 
as to whether women should have the right to 
vote: I do not propose to take any part in that 
discussion, at least this morning. Perhaps 
female siiffrage would be a good thing; per- 
haps it "would be a bad thing; perhaps, were it 
introduced, we should find, when we got used 
to the change, that it had left matters much 
as it found them and made little difference 
whether for good or Ul." 

In a speech in April, 1905, he said: 

"It is surely more odious and more noxious 
to bribe with irfiat is the people's than with 
what is one's own, to purchase suffrage or in- 
fluence at the taxpayer's cost, than to pay for 
these out of the corruptor's pocket. A man 
who filled up his store or factory with workmen 
chosen because they agreed with him about 
the currency or the Philippines, ^id changed 
whenever thdr places were needed for more ef- 



90 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTB 

fectjre political workos wfiold probabty get 
into a stnught-jacket ev&i before he got into 
bankruptcy." 

In politics Bonaparte was a B^ubHcan, be- 
cause, he said: "I r^ard the R^ublican party 
as, <m the whole, and allowing for many im- 
perfections, a sound, healthy and generally 
safe party and a good instrument ol govern- 
ment. Yet I have never hesitated to condemn 
Republican utterances, candidates or public 
men when I thought sudt criticism was de- 
manded by my duly as a citizen." He did not 
accept the doctrine of the ptJitician who, when 
confronted with evidence of corrupt oxiduct in 

a public official, asked: "Whose d d rascal is 

he ? Ours or the other party's ? " In the q)eedi 
last quoted, he made his position <a this pcunt 
sufficiently clear: 

"Those who hate and would undo Civil Ser- 
vice Reform may indeed call themselves here 
'Republicans,* there 'Democrats,* just as trun 
robbers may wear black masks for one holdup 
and white masks for another, but sadi trade 
marks do not change the man. It is rdated 
that wheal General Bourmont was presmted 
to BlUchw, the latter, a man of violuit prejudices 
but a thorough soldier, indicated his professional 
contoupt for a deserter so uiunistakably as to 



fflGH POLITICAL STANDARDS 91 

embarrass his more diplomatic staff. One of 
them, thinking it might please his commander, 
pointed out the enormous white cockade which 
Bourmont ostentatiously wore in proof of de- 
votion to Legitimist principles. 'Bosh!' said 
the old Field Marshal. 'That doesn't matter. 
A blackguard stays a blackguard howev^ you 
may label him.' " 



CHAPTER IX 
EABLY ASSOCIATION WITH ROOSEVELT 

BONAPARTE'S acquaintance with Theo- 
dore Roosevelt began soon after the 
fonnation of the National Civil Service 
Reform League in 1881. Roosevelt was grad- 
uated from Harvard the year before, and became 
ahnost immediately a member of the new organ- 
ization with whose purpose he was in hearty 
accord. Between him and Bonaparte then 
was at cmce a mutual attraction. Both were 
well-bom, both were animated by the same 
sense of public duty, and both had chosen a 
life of active work rather than a life of idleness. 
Roosevelt was not, like Bonaparte, a man of 
lai^ wealth. He had inherited property which 
afforded him an income sufficient for ordinary 
needs. As he says in his "Autobiography," he 
could afford to make earning money the secon- 
daiy instead of the primary object of his career. 
The bond between him and Bonaparte was the 
deep-lying conviction that political methods 
and standards of the day were corrupt and 
debasing, and that it was the duty of eveiy 



ASSOCIATION WITH ROOSEVELT 93 

patriotic American to do his utmost to reform 
them. For years the two men worked side by 
side in perfect hannony and with a steadily 
growing mutual attachment. 

It was while Roosevelt was a member of the 
National Civil Service Commission that he got 
his first glimpse of Bonaparte's qualities as a 
relentless enemy of political rascals. Roose- 
velt in the summer of 1891, as a member of the 
Civil Service Commission, went to Baltimore 
and personally conducted an investigation of 
the Federal offices in that city. In this work, 
the intimate knowledge and untiring zeal of. 
Bonaparte were of incalculable value to him. 
The revelations of political crookedness in the 
various offices were startling, and in a report 
of the inquiry which Roosevelt made and which 
the President sent to Congress in August, 1891. 
he recommended the dismissal of twenty-five 
officials for misconduct, saying of the various 
Federal offices that in them the "public service 
was treated as a bribery diest from which to 
reward influential ward-workers who were likely 
to be useful to the faction in power." Among 
the offices investigated was the Baltimore post- 
office, and Roosevelt's strictures upon its con- 
duct excited the ire of John Wanamaker, who 
was the Postmaster-General, and a lively con- 



»4 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

troversy ensued, out of which Roosevelt 
emerged triumphant. 

In this Baltimore inquiry Roosevelt got his 
6rst knowledge of Bonaparte as a "fitting law- 
yer," a species dear to his heart, and from that 
time forward he availed himself of every oppor- 
tunity to secure his services for the govern- 
ment. After he became President in 1901, he 
kept Bonaparte almost continually in service 
in one capacity or another. In 1902 he made 
him a member of the Board of Indian Com- 
missioners, where he speedily displayed his use- 
fulness. When charges were made against one 
of the local commissions in the Indian territory, 
in 1903, Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte to con- 
duct an investigation of them. With Clinton 
B. Woodruff as assistant, Bonaparte went to 
the Indian territory, conducted a searching 
inquiry, and in March, 1904, made a report in 
which was recommended the abolition of the 
local commission. Tlie case as presented in the 
report was so strong and convincing that Con- 
gress abolished the commission. Bonaparte's 
hand was easily discernible in the report. It 
did not use gentle or equivocal language. " Con- 
ditions in the Indian Territory," it said, "in- 
volve immediate danger of ruin to the genuine 
Indian population and profound discredit to 



ASSOCIATION WITH ROOSEVELT 96 

the United States, excite reasonable discontent 
on the part of all classes of the population and 
demand prompt and drastic remedies on the 
part of Congress." This report led/ in faot, to 
a radical change in the government's Indian 
policy. 

In addition to this Indian service, Roosevelt 
appointed Bonaparte in Septemberj 1903j 
special counsel in the prosecution of men who 
had been diarged with frauds in the postal 
service and in this work he was as successful 
as in all others, for indictments were found and 
convictions seciued. So thoroughly did Bona- 
parte "make good" in the estimation of Roose- 
velt that his promotion to the Cabinet was 
only a question of time. Bonaparte's promi- 
nence in the public eye at this time was suf- 
ficient to start a report in the press that he 
would be a candidate for the Senate frcon Mary- 
land in the next election. To this he replied 
with his customary directness: "I am not a 
candidate for the Senate, or for any other public 
office, never have been, and^ so far as I can 
now see, never shall be." 

In the Presidential campaign of 1904, Bona- 
parte was for the only time in his life a candi- 
date for an elective office. He headed the list 
of Republican Presidential electors, and was 



06 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

the only man cm tliat tit^et dected, castbig 
his vote for Boosevelt, the oaJly Rqiublicaii 
vote cast in Maiyland, all the others heiag 
Democtatic. It was the first test his pcqxilarity^ 
in the state was ever pot to, and the result 
diowed that in spite of the fact that he had 
nevn* soo^t to be a popular man, and in sfite 
also of the bitter hatred his t^ipoation to thor 
politka] mrthods had anMised among the pc£ti- 
cians of the state, the peapk of the state had 
foith in him and were ^bd of the of^iortiiiiity 
to testi^ to it He hims^, howeirs-, with his 
habitual modesly, hdd that his large vote was 
due to the fad. that his name stood first on die 
ballot 

In December, 1904, Boosevelt, ranembering 
the cooditiQn of affurs be discovmcd in the 
Bahimoie post-cAce in 1901, as^ed Bon^iarte 
to Rcommokd a good man (or htm to aj^Kiint 
postmasta'. Bonaparte recommended W. BaB 
Hanis, one of the katding lawrers of die csty 
and a man of excellent reputatksu and Boose- 
velt ai^'anted him in the facr of the cf^matioit 
c^ the entiif Repuhfican or^saniiatioii of the 
state. TW wa$ immktakaMe notice to the 
poKtimn^ of the dctse lebtkiojli^t aUch had 
been e^taMb^Mil beticven the PkcsideBt and 
Boin{iart(>« and tW <AKt was one of c 



ASSOCIATION WITH ROOSEVELT »7 

tion. The outcry in the press and among the 
politicians was tremendous. A cartoon was 
published in one of the Baltimore papers, en- 
titled "A New Boss in Town," in which Bona- 
parte was represented seated, with a crown on 
Ins head, and on the walls of the room were 
portraits of Gorman and the old bosses, includ- 
ing Rasin, the city boss, who for many years 
had controlled all the offices. Bonaparte sent 
a copy of the cartoon to the President who re- 
sponded in this characteristic letter: 

White House. 
WaaliiiigtoD. 

"My dear Bonaparte: ^^^^^' ^' ^^• 

"I have your letter of the 27th enclodng 
newspaper clippings. If you are as well pleased 
as I am wiiii the Baltimore postmastership, 
you are entirely satisfied. I was delighted with 
the picture of you as the crowned king. Hail, 
oh successor of Rasin ! 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt." 



CHAPTER X 

SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 

ALTHOUGH there is good reason for be- 
/■% lieving that President Roosevelt had 
made up his mind to ask Bonaparte to 
eater his Cabinet whenever a vacancy should 
occur, the possbility of such preferment seems 
never to have su^ested itself to Bonaparte. 
Gs said aftra^rajd that in May, 1905, he saw 
the Preadent by appointment when "without 
my, "having any intimation of his purpose he 
asked me to enter his Cabinet. I was com- 
pletely suiprised by his proposal and told him 
I must defer my reply." Two days later. May 
21, X905, he wrote to the President accepting 
the offer in a letter which is of interest as re- 
vealing with characteristic frankness his atti- 
tude toward public office: 

**I have given veiy careful thought to your 
su^estion of Friday last. It is needless, I think, 
for me to repeat that, as I told you then, I ap- 
preciate highly the compliment or, to speak 
mwe accurately, the opinion, on your part, 
]]i4>lied in this suggestion: I feel, however, as 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 99 

I told you Kkewise, no little reluctance to thus 
alter public life. My reasons are that it will 
oblige me to relinquidi active participation in 
certain movements which greatly interest me, 
to give up a part of my professional business, 
to incur expense probably in excess of my of- 
ficial compensation, to break up established 
habits of life, to which I am even more wedded 
than a man of fifty-four might reasonably be, 
and (what, in truth, touches me most deeply) 
to surrender my liberty, — the liberty of saying 
what I think of public a£Fairs without the tram- 
mels of official propriety and responsibility. 
These reasons, which I have stated frankly 
because I think you are entitled to know what 
they are, do not satisfy my own conscience as 
sufficient to justify a refusal to tad you in the 
discharge of your public duties, if you ask my 
aid; I feel that I should be estopped by such a 
refusal to find fault with the present Adminis- 
tration hereafter, and I therefore place myself 
at your disposal." 

In the same letter he disclosed the avowed 
intention of the President to appoint him later 
to the position of Attorney-General: 

"With respect to the office I may fill, my 
personal preference would be to await Mr. 
Moody's retirement and then, if your views 



100 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

remain unchanged, become his successor. I 
understood you, however, on Friday (although 
I do not know that you said this totidem verim) 
to consider it desirable to announce promptly 
the approaching vacancy in the Navy Depart- 
ment, and that a simultaneous announcement 
of my selection to fill this vacancy might have 
a beneficial effect on public opinion. K I under- 
stood you aright as to this, I am willing to 
undertake the duties of Secretary of the Navy 
as soon after July 1st as you may deem ad- 
visable: next to the Department of Justice, 
this would be my dioiee among the Cabinet 
positions. Whether I shall retain it or be trans- 
ferred to the last mentioned Department when 
Mr. Moody resigns, you can decide when that 
times comes: after I have been 'broken in' to 
my work and interested in it, I shall be, I feel 
confident, at least willing to remain at n^ first 
post of duty. It is perhaps proper to say, in 
this connection, that I am in hearty sympathy 
with your frequently e:q)ressed views as to tiie 
importance and, indeed, necessity of a very 
strong and very eflBcioit Navy to the United 
States. 

"There is one point to which your attention 
may not have been called: I should not be sur- 
prised if some opposition to my confirmation 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 101 

were developed in the Sraate. Probabfer few 
Senators know much about me, but those who 
do, are not, I suspect, likely to think me a suit- 
able person for high office. Both Senators from 
my own State are personally (as well as politi- 
cally) hostile to me; and, although, ^ce they 
are Democrats, this will not be, I suppose, a 
very serious feature of the situation, some of 
their Republican colleagues may very possibly 
sympathize with their sentiments. I know you 
would not expect or desire me to turn a finger 
to seciu^ confirmation: I shall be altogether 
indifferent as to the incidents, or results of such 
opposition, should it arise, and I contemplate 
its possibility with entire complacen(^; but I 
am not sure that you will consider it advisable 
to raise an issue of this character with the 
Senate. Perhaps there is no serious danger 
that it will be raised; I think, however, this 
element of the situation ought to be submitted 
to you." 

In reply, the President wrote on May 22, 
1905: 

" Naturally your letter pleased me very 
much. I understand your feelings exactly, and 
appreciate your acceptance. As for the con- 
firmation, I do not believe there will be the 
slightest opposition, and your attitude in ref- 



10R i:AARLES XISEFH BC»iAPABTE 

a|iir«»(v tbffrvtn WMtU be pnn4r nioe^ IVbcs 
I MitwMiw*^ official^' Morton's re^natian 
wltbOi 1 MtifHtnw win be in a Tery few d^s. I 
«bi»ll winmitifv your «|i|MiiuLinait. I think 
Uw»i AiitfiMl. Int «*ill be tbe time «ben I diould 
IUi(' vmi in l«kr office. 

' M.V *Um»- MInw, yon can haidly imagine 
t(tm iftiut 1 lun tn have you a monber of my 

tMt«c' Mtnounciififi; the appointment ^e»- 
vkiMi n>tiMp\>nh had inquiiy made of France 
iKivutifl) vhc Surr tV^ftartment as to idtether 
t4u. wj»fU>w ttf « Bonaparte for sndi a hi{^ 
ii.(^ibm wu4J Kr pcifiai'dMl as in any way a 
i'iJtp,.vi>.iH k^w bhc mlmjc p*rty in that coun- 
u,\ i V i^f »(;« tXMuc fiK-tntptly tiiat ihe gov^n- 
^v-ui .u M«^v KmJ m> ohjectioD whatever. 
{«t^ ^^Hux.Uu(»»4 wMx njMKHUiced on May 31, 
aUJ .d.u^Hl .u*< t«f tW K<£j!^ sensations of 
k^utx.\vJi '«; :>»ju>.aux;j)nUw, U ts difficult to 
:^t iti,iv-tk W.-I .^ i^tlii.H'MUi^ Republicans or 
tV,;.wKi«i*. v^wv iU*«v A»lv>uiid«Hi by it or 
I 'iv M i- .1 'i >« 'til uKvv .v«u.Niwrtt«aMii. Tike great 
:>!,. i .U>.x>v..! b>.\ t^- Vs^Kk- ^^vttitttettts was that 
);k.u;tiAAi;. > Ls.^>^;«iKa :kv Au lUK^Mnpromising 
^uJ tt'^>V.;.:> iv-i^x-K't moa A:h %kie and sofid as 
lW ^oniiu^-u;. V'iKKij .j^H-oiioued that. "He 
.3 a rciuiuia u\uu tV boituut uj^" j«id a pubfic 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 103 

official, "and he has been engaged in hunting 
down and penaUzing graft for the past twenty- 
five years." "Yes," said another; "and they 
can't scare him. When in Baltimore they tell 
him that some of the things he says about politi- 
cians are libelous he replies: 'If there are libel 
suits, I am responsible. Let them sue.' " It 
was recalled that in Baltimore his political 
enemies called him various opprobrious names, 
including "Souphouse CharHe," "Academic 
Pharisee," and the "Imperial peacock of Park 
Avenue," and all in vain, for he smiled and 
went on exposing their rascality as merciless^ 
as ever. 

For many days after his appointment he was 
the chief subject of comment in the press of the 
countiy. His relationship to Nap<^eon was set 
forth at length and was made the subject of 
countless cartoons. In one of these the spirit 
of Napoleon was depicted receiving an aerial 
tel^ram from President Roosevelt reading: 
"I have made your grandnephew Secretary of 
the Navy," and Napoleon was saying: "I hope 
he does better with ships than I did." In an- 
other he was standing dressed like Napoleon 
in naval imiform, after the familiar Orchardson 
picture of the scene on H. M. S. Bdlerophon on 
the voyage from France to England in July, 



104 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

1815, after tlie Battle of Waterloo, with Booao- 
Telt and tlie other members of the Cabinet 
grouped in the background, and under the"]^ 
ture was the inscription : "Ninety Years After." 

In the great majority of the newspapers of 
the country the appointmoit was heartily con^ 
mended, and in no newspaper was there any 
question raised either of his unblemished ia- 
t^rity or his ability to fill the office accept- 
ably. Even in Baltimore, The Sun, whidi dur- 
ing his long fight against the Gorman Ring had 
been its organ and defender, said of him: 

"In Maryland he stands for the best that 
can be gotten out of politics, sind he has risen 
to power and influence in his party without 
Gompromismg his self-respect or truckling to 
any boss. He b a trained lawyer of distinc- 
tion, of ripe scholarship, thoroughly acquainted 
with men and their methods; he has never 
falt«%d in the effort to beat down crookedness 
in politics, and is, like the President, honest 
and desirous of reverting to the plain and dean 
wi^ of dealing with public affairs." 

His fellow townsmen were equally hearty in 
their commendation. Cardinal Gibbons, head 
of the Catholic Church in the United States, 
said: 

"I am delighted with the appointmoit. It 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 105 

is a most happy choice. Mr. Bonaparte will 
strengthen and adorn the Preadent's Cabinet. 
It is a selection most gratifying in our city, of 
which Mr. Bonaparte is a leading citizen." 

The local Democratic boss, I. Freeman Rasin, 
said: "I know very little about him. He is 
said to be a good lawyer. Is his appointment 
a compliment to the state? Humph!" An- 
other Democratic politician, John 3. Mahon, 
was more frank and complimentary: "It's a 
first-class appointment. Mr. Bonaparte is fear- 
less, honest, and clean as a whistle, and has 
ability of a hi^ order. Personally, I don't 
think he has any dislike for me, but politically 
I don't suppose he has any use for me. But 
that doesn't prevent me from acknowledging 
his merit." 

The men of all parties who had been asso- 
ciated with Bonaparte in his reform work de- 
clared with one voice that the appointment 
was an honor to the state and they were proud 
and happy that it had been made. 

One of the most interesting conunents upon 
his appointment came from Constantinople, in 
the Levant Herald : 

"Never was the truth of the saying about 
'the best laid plans of mice and men' more 
forcibly illustrated than by the news that the 



106 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

repudiated scion of the Imperial Napoleon is 
to become a Cabinet Minister of tlie greatest 
Republic the world has ever seen. As Secre- 
tary for the U. S. Navy, Mr. Bonaparte will 
command a Beet vastly more powerful than 
that of the great uncle who disowned him. 
Jerome Bonaparte, the ephemeral King of West- 
phalia, his grandfather, had in 1803 contracted 
a marriage with Miss Elisa Patterson, daughter 
of a wealthy merchant of Baltimore, and of 
this marriage was bom the father of the now 
Minister designate. Meantime, Bonaparte's 
wide-sweeping ambitions expanded with his 
success, and in 1805 he forced his brother, for 
whom he had a crown in prospect, to repudiate 
the merchant's daughter and her child. In 
1829, Mme. Bonaparte's son adopted the Amer- 
ican nationality of his mother, and settled in 
Baltimore, where Mr. Charles Bonaparte was 
born." 

He was besieged by newqjaper correspon- 
dents, and received them all with the famous 
Bonaparte smile. One of them recorded this 
incident: 

"A reporter aslced him if his new appoint- 
ment meant that he was to be the future dis- 
penser of federal patronage in Maryland and 
whether his attendance on the State Conunit- 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 107 

tee's meeting should be takoi to indicate his en- 
trance into the field of practical politics as 'boss.' 

" 'Well, I don't know about that,' replied 
Mr. Bonaparte, 'but I suppose that in order 
to cany out my part as some of my friaids 
would have me do I should take my place to- 
morrow in a little room off the main hall and 
have over the door a placard inscribed " See me 
first." ' Mr. Bonaparte seemed to enjoy his joke 
very much. He was putting in a little dig at 
Senator Gorman, who at the meetings of the 
Democratic State Committee generally occu- 
pies a private room in which the minor leaders 
'see him first.' " 

Descriptions of his personal appearance 
abounded and afforded him much amusement. 
One of them read: 

"It has been sometimes remarked that Mr. 
Bonaparte in his face and figure resembles the 
Little Corporal. People who seek to flatter 
him by saying that, only irritate him, for Mr. 
Bonaparte knows that he is taller and in other 
respects phydcally unlike his famous ancestor. 
His body is thick and sturdy looking, and his 
hands and feet are as small, almost as a 
woman's. His neck is large and strong, as it 
should be to support his massive head. This 
head is a double-decker — a vast, round, rugged 



108 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

head, with curious rises over the temples. One 
writer has described it as *the cannon-ball head 
of a warrior, with room for two sets of brains — 
and it is bald for the larger part, and smooth 
and shiny. 

"Beneath the forehead lurks the Bonaparte 
smile. It is there all the time — morning, noon 
and night. It is there when its owner arises 
in court to pronoimce a eulogy upon a dead 
judge; it is there when he lashes the 'leaders* 
on the stimip, and it is there when he is in a 
case and the witnesses for the other side begin 
to perspire coldly. This smile, though even its 
owner may not have known it, was one of the 
chief assets of the Baltimore Refonn League in 
the year of grace 1895, when the ancient and 
odorous Baltimore ' ring ' faced * Souphouse 
Chariie' and went tumbhng into a heap of 
writhing grafters, scared 'leaders,' and twisted 
machinery." 

He entered upon the duties of the Navy De- 
partment on July 1, 1905, and a few days later 
served notice on his old enemies in the Mary- 
land Ring that he stiU had his eye on them and 
had no intention of leaving them in peace. He 
went to Baltimore and made vigorous protest 
against a proposed Constitutional amendment 
which was designed to disfranchise the negro 



SECRETAKY OF THE NAVY 109 

voters of the state. There was in the amend- 
ment an insidious so-called "grandfather 
clause." In speaking of it Bonaparte displayed 
his established aptitude for quotation by citing 
from Voltaire the phrase: "A good citizen 
needs no grandfather." This, ccmsidering his 
own ancestiy, and his own reputation as a good 
citizen, excited much notice. In closing his 
remarks on the amendment he said: "If its 
right to political existence depends upon its 
having a grandfather like unto itself I unhesi- 
tatingly point out as that worthy grandsire 
— the Father of Lies." 

He did not limit his services to the colored 
race to securing the defeat of the amendment 
providing for their disfranchisement in Mary- 
land. He defended them at his own e^>ense 
in cases brou^t against them in court, and 
faced with calm contempt such taunts as 
"friend of the nigger," that were thrown at 
him because of this conduct. While defending 
them against injustice, he did not fail to give 
them sound advice and admonition with the 
frankness and courage habitual to him. In a 
speech that he made to the Negro Young 
People's Christian and Educational Congress, 
in Baltimore in July, 1906, on "The Future of 
the Negro Race in America," he said: 



no CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

"There is no room in America for people 
who cannot take care of themselves. I am one 
of those who feel strongly the repeated injus- 
tice and frequent perfidy which have marked 
our treatment of the Indians, but, after all has 
been said, the Indians wouldn't or coiddn't, 
or, at all events, didn't leam to work in com- 
petition with the white men, aiid they have 
been first pushed to the wall and thai crushed 
against it. You must either share their fate 
or profit by their example. You can't in this 
country 'rest and be thankful,' for if you try 
to do this you will soon have nothing to be 
thankful for. The idle and sensual and be- 
nighted are never really free, and America now 
is a country only for freemen." 

This speech had a wide circulation, reaching 
as far as Liberia, and calling from Mr. Ernest 
Lyon, American Consul-General there, the fol- 
lowing letter of approval: 

"Allow me to thank you for the excelloit and 
helpful address which you delivered before the 
N. Y. P. C. and Educational Society in July 
last, relative to the Colored people. It has 
created a profound impression on this side of 
the waters, and educated Africans with whom 
I have come in contact express the greatest 
pleasure and delight with its lofty and helpful 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 111 

sentiments. I am causing the address to be 
reproduced in full in one of the Liberian 
Journals and will see to it myself that extra 
numbers be scattered broadcast. Again, let me 
not only thank you for it, Sir, but let me in- 
dulge in the hope that your life may be spared 
to continue in the coimcils of the nation where 
you may prove a blessing to humanity, regard- 
less (A race or color." 



CHAPTER XI 
SECHETABY OF THE NAVY 

(contimued) 

"^^ THILE Bonaparte was put into the 

^^ Navy Department mainly as a half- 
way house to the Attomey-Geoeial- 
flhipf he was by no means a mere figurehead 
during the year and a half of his occupancy. 
Ahnost immediately upon his entrance seveial 
perplexing problems arose for his solution and 
these he met in his usual direct and feariess 
manner. On July 19, 1005, the boilers on a 
gunboat of the navy, the Bennington, espXodsdy 
causing the death of more than fifty o£Bcers 
and men. Secretary Bonaparte at once or- 
dered a Court ci Inquiry and in a statement to 
the public said: 

"The pubhc may rest assured that this dis- 
tressing affair will be most thoroughly investi- 
gated, and that whatever action the result of 
the investigation may show to be proper will 
be taken by the department, promptly and 
effectually. I think this department may 
reasonably ask of an intelligent public that it 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 113 

be trusted to do what is needed under the cir- 
cumstances shown to have existed, whether 
as a matter of justice toward individuals or of 
precaution against similar misfortxmes in Uie 
future." 

The Court of Inquiiy made a report to the 
Secretary on August 30, in which it recom- 
mended that an ensign who was serving as en- 
gineer at the time of the disaster be brought to 
trial before a court martial, made no reference 
to the responsibility of the captain of the vessel, 
thereby virtually acquitting him of blame, and 
said of the condition of affairs on the ship at 
the time: "That (on July 19, 1905) the ship 
was in an excellent state of discipline and in 
a good and efficient condition, with the excep- 
tion of her boilers, which were in fair condition 
and efficient, considering their age (about four- 
teen years), and the use to which they had beoi 
subjected." 

To this finding the Secretary made vigorous 
objection, saying the deparbnent did not con- 
sider it sustained by the evidence, which showed 
that the ship was not in a good condition, and 
ordered that the captain as well as the ensign 
go before a court martial to answer a charge 
of neglect of official duty. 

This action of the Secretary caused a great 



lU CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

commotion in naval circles, where it was quite 
generally condemned, but in the reputable 
press of the country it was approved. The 
court martial was assembled and after a full 
hearing, both the captain and ensign were ac- 
quitted in January, 1906.^ This verdict was 
disapproved by both the Secretary and the 
Judge Advocate-General of the navy, and was 
returned to the coiu^ martial for revision. The 
court martial adhered to its original decision, 
and there the matter ended, leaving behind it 
in many quarters a belief that a coat of white- 
wash had been administered and that the Secre- 
tary had been justified in his course. 

In October, 1905, the Secretary took action 
in regard to proper respect for the naval uni- 
form which won him warm commendation. A 
dvilian employee of the Norfolk navy-yard let 
a portion of his house to a petty officer of the 
navy. He broke the contract on the ground that 
his wife feared her "social position" would be 
affected if a man in sailor's clothes were seen 
going into or coming out of the house. Secre" 
tary Bonaparte dismissed the civilian employee 
from the service, and in his annual report for 
1906, he thus explained his action: 

'The uniform of an American sailor is uni- 
versally recognized as not only decorous but 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 115 

picturesque, and is frequently imitated in the 
costumes of children and young women. The 
objection on the part of the dismissed employee 
or his wife to its use by a person who should 
live in their house evidently arose not from 
any prejudice against the dress but from the 
unfounded and calumnious notion, unfortu- 
natdy not confined to them, that a sailor on 
shore is presumptively a disorderly and drunken 
individual and a fit associate for rowdies and 
prostitutes. I need not discuss whether there 
ever was any truth in this idea with respect 
to the sailors of our Navy; certainly, it is wholly 
false and slanderous at present. 

"The Department has tried long and ear- 
nestly to secure for the service men of good 
moral character and reputable antecedents; and 
it therefore demands and, so far as It can, com- 
pels req>ect for these men and for their uniform 
from all classes of the community. It might 
appear at first sight that an incident such as 
the one above noted was hardly of sufficient 
importance to justify mention in this report or 
action by the Department, but in certain re- 
spects this discnmination against the uniform 
has very serious consequences. Not only does 
it retard enlistments and promote desertions, 
but when a ship of war comes into port from a 



116 CHABLES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

cruise, lastmg peiiuii^ many months, its en- 
listed complemait, consisting in great majority 
of yoimg immarried men, have a natural and 
Intimate desire for relaxation and amusement 
after this long period of isolation and monot- 
ony. If they are not admitted to r^utable 
places <^ entertiunment th^ will go to sudi 
as are disreputable; if the 'social positicm* <^ 
virtuous women is affected by being seen in 
their company th^ will associate with vicious 
women, and the results of this almost enforced 
debauchery will be deplorable to themselves 
and to the service. 

"I recommend that the Congress make any 
r^usal on the part of the proprietor of a theatre 
or other place of amusement, an innkeeper, or 
a common carrier, to furnish accommodation 
to an orderly and well-behaved person in the 
naval service able and willing to pay for sudi 
accommodation an offense against the United 
States, punishable by fine and imprisonment." 

In November, 1905, a fist fight in the Naval 
Academy, at Annapolis, resulted in the death 
of a midshipman from a blow on the head. 
Secretary Bonaparte ordered a court martial 
of the midshipman who had dealt the blow, 
which resulted in a verdict that he "be confined 
to the limits of the Naval Academy for a period 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 117 

of one year, and be publicly reprimanded by 
the Secretary of the Navy." The Secretary's 
reprimand was in the form of a letter as follows: 
Dec. 12, 1905. 

"Sir: You have been duly convicted of vio- 
lating clause 3 of Article VIII of the articles 
for the government of the navy by insulting 
and subsequently assaulting one of your fellow- 
midshipmen; and of conduct to the prejudice 
of good order and discipline by engaging in a 
fist fight with the same midshipman. These 
offenses on your part have led to a calamity so 
clearly imforeseen by you and so distressing 
that no words of reproof can be needed to make 
you feel their gravity. Your disobedience to 
the laws of your coimfay, your foi^etfulness of 
the full import of your oath, your yielding to 
fierce and angry passions when tempted by a 
sense of wrong have borne fruits so bitter that 
your worst punishment has been ahe&dy suf- 
fered. 

"The merciful sentence of the court martial 
which tried you leaves you a member of the, 
honorable profession you have chosen. In that 
great school of self-sacrifice and obedience, a 
life useful to your country will, it is hoped, 
atone for grave faults which have clouded the 
early years of yoiu- service. 



118 CHARLES JOSEPH BOSAFAXTE 

**Yoa win acknowiedge rece^ of dds letto*, 
and it will be oitacd fHi yoar official icconi'' 



Uraioiibted^, the most 
in Bonaparte's administratiffln was oeated by 
his rw^' omm^Tufa timi that th^ old frigate Cai^ 
a^bitian be used as a target and sank in the 
ocean. The uproar whidb this caosed wiits it 
became pot^ in his ammal leport hx 1905, 
was terrific. In. Bostm it asBomed the propot^ 
tiHia of a pf^KiIar conTnlaoD. Nobodf was 
moce surfHised, and scn^y QobodT' was more 
amused by it, than B<xi^parte^ "Bb had no 
sn^Hcicn that any <xie could object, for he siq»- 
poaed that his statement dl histcxic facts about 
the vessel would show everybody that thexe 
was little ot no ground for sentiment in con- 
nection with it. His recommendation was made 
the subject <rf such a Kv^ controvert and 
has been so often misrepresmted that it is 
wwth while to r^roduce it here in fuH: 

"Ernmeous or great^ esaggn^ted i^iorts 
as to the cmidition c^ the old frigate Coiut&u- 
tian now at the Boston navy-yard led recently 
to some pc^ular agitatim lotting to the preser^ 
vatirai oi this ship as a national relic, and also 
to mucb discus^on as to the most aj^Nrofm- 
ate and becoming method of pcxpetuating the 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 119 

memory of the naval victories with which her 
name is associated. 

"In dealing with this queslion it is important 
to bear in mind that the vessel now at Charles- 
town is not the vessel with which Hull captiired 
the Guerrihe. Some portion of the materials 
from that ship was midoubtedly used in build- 
ing the new one, to which her name was sub- 
sequently given, but probably only a very small 
part of these materials can now be identified 
with any confidence, and in any event, it is 
quite certain that they constituted only a veiy 
small part of the structure of the new ship. 
To exhibit the ConstitiUian therefore as the 
genuine 'Old Ironsides,' charging, as has been 
proposed, a fee for permission to inspect her, 
and using the amount thus earned to bear the 
e^qiense of her preservation, would not only 
ill accord with the dignity of the Government, 
but would amount to obtaining money under 
false pretences. 

"The further suggestion that she should be 
rebuilt on her old lines with new materials would 
involve a perfectly unjustifiable waste of public 
money, since when completed, at a cost of cer- 
tainly several hundred thousand dollars, she 
would be absolutely useless. Nevertheless, I 
think it would be wise and becoming to com- 



IflO CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTB 

memOTste in aame prap^ mqr the victiHies at 
the old Cotulihition, and I suggest that this 
be doae in the same vay in whidi it was dooe 
when the frigate was rdniih — that is to say, 
I suggest that so modi f^ the materials d the 
presoit shq> as can be shown to have bdfHiged 
to the ori^nal Coiutiutum, and to be also d 
Bome utility, or at least o( no detriment, on 
board a modem sfaq> <^ war, be tiansfened to 
a new vessel to be named the Constihttum, and 
that the remainder of the siup be brokoi iq>. 

**li, for purefy sentimoital reasons, it should 
be thou^t that this suj^msed veteran of our 
(rfd wars is entitled to a warrior's death, she 
might be used as a target for some d the sh^ 
in our North Atlantic fleet and sunk by th^ 
fire. I think the new vessel ought to be one 
outfflde of the r^ular estimate for the increase 
of the Navy, built, first of all, to perpetuate 
the memory of the Con^Uution, but so coa- 
structed that in all respects she will compare 
favorably with the finest vessels of her type 
now afloat. 

"This type, it appears to me, ought to be 
that of an armored cruiser, since the late Con- 
dilution was not a ship of the line, but a frigate, 
and armored cruisers at the present day corre- 
q>ond in a general way to what frigates were 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 121 

in her day. I suggest, therefore, that an ar- 
mored cruiser on the general model of the West 
Virginia and Colorado, but larger and swifter, 
and with all the improvement suggested by the 
latest phase of naval science, be authorized to 
be built and named the Coristitution, and that 
she take the place of the present old frigate on 
CUP Navy register." 

A mass-meeting was called in FaneuU Hall, 
in Boston, to protest against the Secretary's 
suggestion, and on the afternoon preceding its 
assembling a telegram was sent to Secretary 
Bonaparte by one of its promoters, asking: 
"May I not say to the meeting called to pre- 
serve the Conatituiion that she will not be de- 
stroyed?" To this the Secretary replied: 
"Fate of Cong^iuiion m. hands of Congress. 
Personally wish to see her arise like a phoenix, 
but am too loyal to other Constitution to take 
xmauthorized liberties with this one." The 
meeting was held, well but not largely attoided, 
and speeches vigorously denouncing the Secre- 
tary were made. OUver Wendell Holmes's 
poem "Old Ironsides," which was famihar to 
every school-child in the land, was published 
in the newspapers, and Congress authorized an 
appropriation for the preservation of the ship, 
and the storm passed. In his annual report 



122 CHAIILES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

for 1906, SeCTetary Bonaparte recalled his sug- 
gestion of the previous year and added: 

"I deem the forgoing explanation propo* 
because of the clamor aroused by the last-men- 
tioned suggestion, a clamor which, although un- 
reasonable and largely factitious, nevertheless 
indicated on the part of many worthy people 
either ignorance of the facts or else a complete 
misunderstanding of the Department's meaning. 

"The work authorized by the congress at its 
last session for the preservation of the old ship 
is in progress. Much of the upper woodwork, 
which proved to be very badly decided, has 
been removed and suitable supports inserted, 
so that the vessel may be docked without dan- 
ger to her int^rity. Inasmuch as it has been 
determined to spend the considerable sum al- 
ready appropriated for her preservation, I 
recommend that she be so far fiulher recon- 
structed as to be made seaworthy. In my last 
report I stated that, if so rebuilt, 'she would 
be absolutely useless'; experience has led me to 
modify this opinion. The Department is fre- 
quently requested to send ships of war to take 
part, and especially to fire salutes, in patriotic 
celebrations at seaport towns. If the Consti- 
tution were ia condition to be towed from port 
to port, she would be veiy serviceable for this 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 123 

purpose; and would certainly serve much better 
to awaken interest in the Navy and remind 
the public of its honorable traditions than if 
k^t as a mere object of curiosity at a single 
naval station." 

The old vessel was repaired and has been 
kept in repair since, and is at the present time 
at the navy-yard in Boston. 

So far as the general administration of the 
Navy Department was concerned Bonaparte 
followed estabhshed policy and did Kttle more 
than maintain the existing level. He was in 
complete ^onpathy, as he said on taking oflBce, 
with President Roosevelt's views on the need 
of a large navy, and all his recommendations 
were along that line. He took, because of his 
official position, a prominent part in the spec- 
tacular proceedings in connection with bringing 
the remains of John Paul Jones to this coxmtry 
for burial at Annapolis in 1906. 

In an article which he published in the Cen- 
tury Magadne, in March, 1910, he thus de- 
scribed his own experiences in the department. 
Writing of visits of a Senator or Congressman, 
he said: 

"When he called on the Secretary of the 
Navy it was always to intercede for a deserter, 
to ask the discharge of a recruit, or to get work 



124 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

for some one in a navy-yard or higher wages 
for workmen. In any ease, he always 'wanted 
something* for his friends or his State or his 
district, and, really and in the last resort, al- 
ways ' wanted something * for himself. To 
make him talk or think about national defense, 
the effective administration of justice, the en- 
forcement of the very laws he had helped to 
make, there must have been, in the words of 
Sam Weller, *notlun' less than a nat'ral con- 
wulsion.* One of these statesmen, calling on 
me shortly before Christmas, wished me 'the 
compliments of the season.* I replied that I 
wished him 

*"A Merrie Christmas and a Happy New Year, 
A pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer.' 

"He listened with a sympathetic countenance 
imtil he heard the last four words; then his 
face clouded, and he said sti£9y that he thanked 
me for my good wishes, but felt it his duty to 
add that, among his constituents, 'public opin- 
ion condemned the use of intoxicants as a 
beverage.' 

"In itself, however, the office I held is, or 
ought to be, laborious and responsible. A Secre- 
taiy of the Navy, if unwilling to be merely a 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 125 

more or less ornamental appendage, must work 
hard, think for himself, keep his own coxmsel, 
and, while receiving outwardly military defer- 
ence, count on many whispered maledictions. 
Our naval officers are a fine body of men both 
morally and intellectually; while at my second 
post of duty I often remembered them with 
regret. 

"In my time much public money was wasted 
on navy-yards. There were by far too many 
of them. Some had once been needed, but had 
long ago outgrown usefulness; some were orig- 
inally estabDshed through log-rolling in the 
naval committees and never had been or could 
be of any use. A mischievous tendency to make 
work for the yard force had thus been fostered 
in the service. A requisition for labor and ma- 
terials estimated at fifty-three cents that once 
reached the Department, with half a dozen 
successive approvals, originated in the fact that 
a thermometer in the magazine of a vessel lying 
at cme of the yards was moved a few feet. In- 
stead of having one of the skilled mechanics 
aboard drive a nail at the place selected, which 
might have taken ten seconds, a hand from one 
of the shops was sent for, who consumed fifty 
cents' worth of time coming and going, with 



us CHARLES JOSEPH BOXAPABTE 

an jJlowanoe oi Uuce caits bx a nail and tlie 
wear and tear of a ^* "'"«^*^- h»^d . " 

Booaparte's adminisbraljon of tlie depart- 
ment was pc^mlar with the naw, and he was 
Rgatded by its t^Bcas as one of the most effi- 
aait secretaries who had fiDed the poatiiMi 
daring teoent years. 

An incddent which ocxuned while he was in 
the Navy Dqiartmait, is reonded by Presi- 
dcnt Boosevdt in oae ai the letters to his diil- 
dnai:* 

"Prince Louis ci Battenbog has beoi hoe 
and I have heai reiy modi pleased with him. 
He is a really good admiral, and in addition he 
is a wdl-read and cultivated man and it was 
dianoing to talk with him. We had him and 
his nephew. Prince Alexander, a miHAipTnMi , 
to hmch alcHK with as, and we ieal]y enjoyed 
having them. At the State dinner he sat be- 
twem me and Bonaparte, and I could not hdp 
smiKng to myself in thinking that hoe was 
this British Admiral seated beside the Amoican 
Secretaij- of the Xavj- — the American Secre- 
taiy of the Xavy being the gnmd-nq^iew of 
Napoleon and the grandacoi d Joome, King 
of Westphalia; while the British Admiral was 



SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 127 

the grandson of a Hessian general who was the 
subject of King Jerome and served xmder Napo- 
leon, and then, by no means creditably, de- 
serted him in the middle of the Battle of Leip- 



CHAPTER Xn 

ATTORNEY-GENERAL 

EARLY in 1906, Bonaparte conveyed to 
President Roosevelt an intimation that 
if, for any reason, he was dissatisfied 
with his conduct of the Navy Department, he 
was quite wiUing to Tesign. Roosevelt's re- 
sponse, under date of January Id, 1906, was 
characteristic and emphatic: "You are a 
trump ! Remember that I always intended 
to have you in as Attorney-General, expecting 
to appoint you on the first of this July. I put 
you in the Navy Department as a stop-gap. 
You must not leave the Cabinet even tem- 
porarily." 

When early in December, 1906, the President 
sent to the Senate the nomination of Bonaparte 
for Attorney-General a few Democratic Sena- 
tors opposed confirmation on the ground that 
in 1S99 Bonaparte had made a speech in which 
he had said that legislative action in regulation 
or restraint of combinations was undesirable. 
In reply to this Bonaparte said: "I believe all 
laws should be obeyed without evasion or ques- 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 129 

tion, and that all who do not obey the law 
should be impartially and inflexibly punished 
according to the law. This is the only state- 
ment of my views which I think appropriate in 
this connection." 

The objection was generally regarded as cap- 
tious and was unavailing as the nomination was 
confirmed on December 17. It was especially 
futile in view of a passage on pigs in a speech 
which Bonaparte had made only a short time 
before in Maryland, at Denton, on October 1, 
1906, and which had excited wide and varied 
comment in the press: 

"Our big, strong, greedy, over-prosperous 
trusts are animals of the like (pig) order. They 
crowd their smaller and weaker fellows from 
the feeding trough so that these dtm't get their 
fair share of our national prosperity. The prob- 
lem is how to so fence off the great beasts as 
to give the little ones a show. 

"Remember we don't complain of the tona&i 
because they are themselves big and fat, but 
because they keep the others small and thin. 
The fatter the big pigs become the better for 
their owner and the more money the trusts 
make the better for the American people pro- 
vided in the one case, all ihe little pigs get fat 
too, or, at all events, as fat as these can, and. 



130 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

in the other that all dealers outside of the 
trusts have a fair fidd and the trusts have no 
favor. 

"Our President wants and has always wanted 
a square deal for every one, whether pig, lion, 
or man, and under his leadership the Republican 
Party has tried to put and keep each of our 
trusts in its proper pen where it can*t crowd 
any of the little fellows around it. To these 
ends he has asked the aid of Congress and of 
the courts to keep the corporate and individiial 
wealth of the country In due subjection to the 
law, not to make rich men poor, for to do this 
would only make poor men poorer, but to make 
rich men law-abiding so that poor men may 
become rich if ihey will. And the two Houses 
of Congress as well as the courts have responded 
to his appeal." 

When taking the oath of office Bonaparte 
fore^iadowed the course, which he subsequently 
followed, of arguing personaUy cases before the 
Supreme Court, by saying in reply to the wel- 
coming words of his predecessor: 

"I desire to say but one word at this moment. 
In the Act of 1789 it is provided tbat 'there 
shall be appointed a meet person, learned in 
the law, to act as Attorney-General for the 
United States, whose duty it shall be to prose- 



THe WHITE HOUSE. 

WASHINGTON. 



January 15, 1906. 



Uy dear Boneqtarte: 

Tou «ra a trun^I Z ahall not try to answer you until 
I see you. Heraetuber, hovever, that I alwaya Intended to 
have you In aa Attornoy Genaral, expecting to appoint you 
the let of this July. I put you In the Navy Department a* 



£,^^~^ 4!ZL..^.4^V«*<^ 



JU,«ays yours. 



Kon. Charlaa J. Bonaparte, 
Seerotary of the Kavy. 



f) 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 131 

cute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court 
in which the United States shall be concerned.' 

"Guided, sir, in this determination by your 
example and council, while not forgetful of the 
further duties of grave moment imposed by this 
law and by later laws upon the Attorney-Gen- 
eral, I shall always remember that his first task, 
first in order of time and, to my mind, first in 
order of importance, is personalty to protect 
the interests of the Government before the 
great court of our Constitution." 

Bonaparte's appointment to the Department 
of Justice had been so clearly foreshadowed 
that it excited much less interest than had his 
appointment as Secretary of the Navy. In 
general, the press comment was favorable, his 
high reputation as a lawyer being well and 
widely established. A newspaper sketch of 
him at this time represented quite accurately 
the prevailing Washington view of him as he 
entered upon his new duties: 

"Through their agents in Washington the 
big corporation lawyers in all parts of the coun- 
try are making careful inquiry into the char- 
acter, capacity and temporal qualities of Mr. 
Bonaparte. They want to get his measure 
before they have to face him in court. The 
first thing they wiU learn of him is that he is 



132 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

an aristocrat in feeling and deportment. He is 
too proud to be bossed and too cynical to be 
fooled. No 'interest' or no person does or can 
control liim. He does his own thinking — and 
a veiy clear article of thought his mental ma- 
chineiy turns out, too, with barbs of wit and 
sharp edges of cynicism that inflict smarting 
woimds on the adversary who arouses his ire. 
Mr. Bonaparte has never had a large law prac- 
tice, because he has been too busy with hia 
own affairs, but he is a lawyer of profound learn- 
ing, great industry and a genius for detail. 
Whether he is ambitious or not, in the sense 
that most men who get into high office in the 
United States are, is a question which even the 
very few persons who are his intimates are able 
to answer. They give it as their opinion that 
he would rather be Attorney General than 
President, and that with his natural hatred of 
vulgar and greedy rich men he will prove a 
terror to every trust magnate in the country 
who comes under that head." 

President Roosevelt was at the height of his 
campaign against "bad trusts," when Bona- 
parte became Attorney-General. In November, 
1906, the Government had brought suit against 
the Standard Oil Company as a combination 
in restraint of trade, and had begim an investi- 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 133 

gation of the Union Pacific or Harriman lines. 
Early in 1907, there were signs of approaching 
financial disturbances of a serious nature, and 
these were made the basis of a formidable and 
concerted effort by the opponents of the Presi- 
dent's policy in regard to railway and other 
corporations to induce him to moderate or 
abandon temporarily such legal proceedings as 
he had instituted. This effort failed utterly, 
and the President adhered inflexibly to his 
course. In his resolute determination to be 
neither coaxed nor frightened from his position 
he had a legal ally after his own heart in Bona- 
parte. They stood shoulder to shoulder and 
saw eye to eye in all things. Both men were 
generously endowed with the saving sense of 
humor, in which they found solace and relief in 
times of vexation and amid tempests of mis- 
representation and abuse. Instances of this 
perfect understanding occur frequently in their 
correspondence, both official and personal. In 
The Outlook of March 16, 1907, Bonaparte pub- 
hshed an article on Roosevelt's administration 
entitled "Two Years of a Government That 
Does Things." In this he said that Roose- 
velt's administration had not made promises 
in advance which it had failed to fulfil, in that 
respect differing from those statesmen who 



134 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

would promise anything in a campaign that 
they thought would help to elect them. "I 
have not heard a suggestion," he said, "that 
the canals of Mars be acquired and exploited 
by our Government, but this suggestion would 
bear a close analogy to some which 1 have heard, 
especially if it be true that there are no canals 
in Mars." 

Referring to the achievements of President 
Roosevelt, he wrote: 

'"Hie first thing or at least the first big thing, 
he did after his inauguration, was to run the 
risk of rebuff and failure and consequent blame, 
to forget the precepts and the precedents of a 
policy which would shut out our country from 
international fellowship with nineteen-twen- 
tieths of the hiunan race, and to employ all the 
legitimate influence of a great nation — a na- 
tion too strong to be flouted, and in this case 
too clearly disinterested to be suspected of guile 
— to restore the incalculable blessing of peace 
to Russia and Japan and the lands which were 
their battlefield. Beside this great achieve- 
ment, his share in promoting the peace of Cen- 
tral America, in staying civil strife in Cuba, in 
discouraging rebellion in Santo Domingo, seem 
trifles; but these trifles have served to spare 
humanity no little bloodshed and misery and 



WHITE HOUSE, 

WASHINGTON. 







f 1' 



Vk ' 



^ 



t ^ 



^ 



f 1 



\ 



J 



! 1^ 



■i 



1 






1 ^ *• s < 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 135 

to earn for his country and himself no little 
credit and respect." 

In regEird to the President's attitude toward 
the trusts, he wrote: "It bas been the aim of 
this Administration, an aim pursued with im- 
swerviug fideUty during the past two years, to 
show all Americans, whether rich or poor or 
of whatever class, or condition in life, that the 
laws made for their common good demand the 
prompt and unquestioning obedience of all 
alike." 

This article so pleased Roosevelt that he 
wrote in his own hand the following letter to 
Bonaparte which ^hibits the " teamwork " 
spirit that pervaded the Administration. 

White House. 
WasUngton. 

"Deah Bonapabte, M.^.'' '8"'' •«"• 

"Just a line more about your ari;icle on my 
administration — to be accurate, our adminis- 
tration, for I feel that there has rarely been an 
administration where it has been so much a 
case of collective judgment and action as in 
the case of this — you and I, Root and Taft, 
Cortelyou, Moody, have been able to work to- 
gether with astonishing imanimity, and, I really 
believe, with most unusual singleness of pur- 
pose. 



136 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

"Much though I like the article for what it 
says, I think I am almost more pleased at what 
it shows of the writer. It is & nice thing to have 
in high public place a man who naturally uses 
the similes and expressions therein used; they 
are all used in such new ways — from Mars to 
Charlemagne — and th^ have the merit in 
public documents, of being interesting; it is 
good to see Engli^ used as an instrument of 
literary, not merely scientific, precision, by a 
man actively working out great problems of 



Sincerely yours 

Theodobe Roosevelt." 



CHAPTER XIII 

ATTORNEY-GENERAL 

(continded) 

SCARCELY had Bonaparte entered upon 
his duties as Attorney-General, when 
what seemed to be a systematic effort to 
cause dissension between him and the Presi- 
dent was instituted in the press. Ahnost daily 
reports were sent from Washington that the 
President was displeased with him and that his 
resignation was imminent. One day it would 
be said that Bonaparte's flippant utterances in 
speeches were extremely distasteful to the Presi- 
dent. On another day it would be said that 
Bonaparte's inattention to the duties of his 
office, his laxness in the trust prosecution, was 
greatly annoying the President whose patience 
was nearly exhausted. Such head-lines as these 
• — I am quoting from the newspapers of the period 
— were frequent: "Indolent Bonaparte to Lose 
His Job"; "May Fire Bonaparte for Soldier- 
ing"; "Bonaparte May Resign"; "Bonaparte 
Is Riled; May Be Forced Out"; "Bonaparte 
Stung with Criticism Does Some Hard Woit"; 



138 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAETE 

''Roosevelt Ignores Bonaparte"; "Bonaparte 
Falls Out with the President'*; "Roosevett 
Can't Stir Bonaparte." Then, for a. time would 
appear such head-lines as: "Bonaparte No 
Quitter"; "Bonaparte to Stay." These were 
usually accompanied by statements like the 
following, which appeared in the New York 
Journal cf Commerce and other news^pers in 
August, 1907: 

"According to important interests in this 
city vCTy close to the Administration, the use- 
fulness of Attorn^ General Bonaparte as a 
member of the Presideit's Cabinet has cul- 
minated. It is not expected that immediate 
retirement will result, for such action might be 
construed as a sign of weakening in the Presi- 
dent's anti-trust policy — a construction partic- 
ularly distasteful to Mr. Roosevelt, since not 
the slightest justification exists for it. But 
lliere is no question, according to the excellent 
information obtained last evening, that the 
Presidait is not only not in sympathy with the 
recent flippant and undignified attitude and the 
at least doubtful le^al procedure displayed by 
the Attorney General, but is in all respects 
opposed to them. 

"'Bonaparte is an impossible man,' said a 
mutual frioid of both the President and the 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 139 

Attorney General. 'I cannot imagine how the 
President came to appoint him. He has ap- 
parently not taken, and I am quite sure he 
never will take his position as Attorn^ Genera] 
seriously, and there is no question that he is 
the wrong man for the place — a fact that Presi- 
dent Roosevdt scans now to fully recognize/ 
The same authority, who has, by the way, dis- 
cussed the policgr of the Administration with 
the President, intimated that the Executive is 
deeply chagrined at the position in which he 
has been placed by the Attorney General." 

In order to show how utterly groimdless all 
these rumors were, it is only necessary to quote 
from the letters which passed between the two 
men during this time. In August, 1907, Bona- 
parte was spending his vacation in Lenox and 
Roosevelt was at Oyster Bay. Roosevelt wag 
preparing the address that he delivered on 
August 20 at the laying of the comer-stone of 
the Pilgrim Memorial Monument at Province- 
town, Mass. He sent a draft of it on August 
2 to Bonaparte for suggestions and criticism, 
and on August 5, Bonaparte replied as follows: 

"I have duly received your letter of the 2nd 
inst., with the accompanying draft of your 
proposed speech, in which I find no room for 
any possible suggestion, except that where you 



140 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

speak of putting the 'trusts tliat are guilty of 
wrongdoiDg in the hands of recovers/ it might 
perhaps be well to add the words 'in certain 
contingencies, and for certain puiposes.' It is 
an admirable address and cannot fail, I think, 
to be of service in guiding and enlightening 
pubHc opinion. The talk about the criminal 
prosecution of trust magnates suggests to my 
mind the old adage that 'not what we eat> but 
what we digest does us good.* It would be a 
good thing to have one of the aforesaid mag- 
nates sent to jail, but it would not be a good 
thing to have a jury of his coimtrymen deal 
with him as the Idaho jury dealt with Hay- 
wood. I have been on the lookout, for several 
months, for a good case, but the chance of get- 
ting a conviction, and a sentence of imprison- 
meat after the conviction, seem to me to be 
very poor, unless we can strike a case where 
the criminal acts are not merely violations of 
positive law, but, also, involve some element 
of generally recognized moral obliquity. This 
fact was, as you will remember, strildngly illus- 
trated by our e3q)erience with the Liquorice 
Trust. We indicted and tried the two corpora- 
tions and their respective Presidents. The ctm- 
tracts and other transactions establishing the 
guilt of the corporations were made thorough 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 141 

and so far as they were in writing, signed by 
the Presidents. Nevertheless, the Jury con- 
victed the two companies and acquitted the 
two men. The average juryman would like to 
see trusts broken up, and is quite ready to have 
the corporations forming part of them fined} 
but when it comes to sending to jail a reputable 
member of the community merely for doing 
what a veiy large proportion of the successful 
business men of his acquaintance do, to his 
knowledge, when they get a chance, the jury- 
man is very loth to find the facts proven 'be- 
yond a reasonable doubt.* As you say, in the 
speech, no great good is accomplished in con- 
victing a mere underling on whom the Court 
will probably impose a very light sentence, and 
yet it is so often only in such cases that proof 
can be obtained so absolutely clear as to leave 
no loophole for an escape from conviction." 

The perfect accord between the two men is 
shown by the fact that Roosevelt cut out of 
his address the sentence which Bonaparte had 
amended about putting trusts .that had o£Fended 
in the hands of receivers, and incorporated, al- j 
most literally, the passage in Bonaparte's letter 
about e^qKrience with the Liquorice Trust 
The address in this amended form is so pub- 
lished in the official collection of his addresses. 



142 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

All of Roosevelt's intimates knew that he was 
always quick to accept suggestions from those 
in whose judgment he had confidence. 

Bonaparte early in August sent to the Presi- 
dent a letter that he had received from a well- 
known New England banker criticising his 
courae in prosecuting trusts, and asked the 
President's advice about replying to him. In 
response the President wrote on August 15, 
1907: 

"I think it would be an excellent thing for 
you to write Blank with a view to publication. 
I have written him four or five different letters, 
not with a view to pubUcation, all in answer to 
various letters he sent me. He is a trump, but 
I know no human being who squeals louder and 
more irrationally on all kinds and sorts of sub- 
jects, but especially when there is a dump in 
stocks." 

Bonaparte had been very much interested in 
Maryland politics during the summer and had 
made several speeches in the State. On August 
15, 1907, he wrote to the President from Lenox: 

**The RepubKcan Convention nominated a 
very good ticket yesterday, and the outlook in 
Maryland is much brighter than I e^>ected it 
to be. I enclose you a clipping giving the reso- 
lution <Mi national affairs. I prepared it, al- 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 14S 

though I did not attend the Convention. As I 
wrote it the words underlined were *our beloved 
President.' Subsequently I was told that ob- 
jection would be made by somebody to the 
word * beloved,' although the objector was 
willing to say 'esteemed.' I told my informant 
that I did not think the difference would be 
material. I did not enquire which one of the 
prominent pohticians it was who had made 
the objection, as I thought it would show too 
much solicitude about a trifle to do so, but I 
have some reason to suspect it was a 'trust 
magnate' on the modest scale possible, in Mary- 
land, or else the representative of one and that 
the incident was a petty ebullition of the spirit 
now apparently rampant in Wall Street. 

"The inhabitants of that favored locality* 
and those imder their influence, seem to be 
very angiy with me just now, by reason of some- 
thing which I either have said or havoi't said. 
I enclose a Uttle editorial from today's TrOmnet 
which may not have met your eye. I do not 
know to what this refers. As I wrote you, some 
of the interviews attributed to me just afta I 
left Oyster Bay were decidedly silly, and might 
have justified criticism from a 'fault of manners* 
on my part, had they not been, in lai^e part, 
apocryphal. I hardly think, however, that this 



144 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAftTE 

is what troubles our friends of the Press at pres- 
ent. I have been urged by a number of re- 
porters to give a list of the prosecutions now 
contemplated, or under investigation, by the 
Department, because it would have a re-assur- 
ing effect on Wall Street, or else, with the same 
end in view, to authorize a pubHcation to the 
effect that there were very few such contem- 
plated prosecutions, and none involving wealthy 
corporations, or prominent persons. Of course* 
I have declined to do either, because the second 
statement would not be accurate, and it would 
be decidedly against the pubHc interest, as well 
as against the practice of the D^artment, to 
give out the information involved in the first. 

"Since writing the above I have heard from 
some newq>aper mai, that the essence of my 
offence has consisted in the levity with which 
I am supposed to have spoken of the possibility 
that Rockefeller, Harriman or some other real 
magnate might be placed in jail. Such a con- 
tingency in the view of all 'conservative' ele- 
ments of the community, is one to be mentioned 
with bated breath, and the reckless disr^ard 
for the country's prosperity shown by speaking 
of it as I have done, is clearly responsible for 
all the trouble in the stock market." 

To this Roosevelt replied on August 17: 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 145 

"That editorial from The Tribune to my mind 
simply goes to show that it also can be reached 
from Wall Street. What curious people they 
are! 

"I heartify improve of yont declining to give 
the reporters an interview. As I wrote you, I 
think that the wise thing for you to do is simply 
to sa^ nothing. Your actions have been, with- 
out exception, right. The course you have fol- 
lowed has been marked by both courage and 
wisdom, and in the end it is bound to receive 
the approbation of idl decent men. Anything 
that you say is certain to be twisted, and I ^m- 
ply would not speak at all. 

"I am much amused at the substituti(m of 
'esteemed* for 'beloved.' In Wall Street neither 
adjective would be tolerated for a mom^t." 

Writing again on August SI and 26, Bona- 
parte gave further evidence of the absolute 
falsity of the reports that he and the President 
were not in complete harmony: 

"I have been told by some of my newquper 
friends that orders have been rec^ved by repre- 
sentatives of The Times, Sun and Journal of 
Commerce, and possibly one or two other papers, 
not to 'let up' on the Department of Justice, 
nor on me, so long as I remained its head, which* 
the Trusts hope, will not be long. The au- 



146 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

thority for this stoiy is none of the best, and 
I should attach no credit to it, if it did not seem 
to correspond so closely with the course of the 
papers referred to. Recently th^^ sean to 
have deliberately adopted as a 'plan of cam- 
paign* the scheme of ascribing to me state- 
ments and interviews which are altogether 
apocryphal. I have noted, at least, a half a 
dozen such instances within the past few days: 
the semi-statements do not affect me personally 
exc^t as a souree of amusement, but, I fear 
that Judge Landis, and possibly some other 
persons, may have taken them more seriously. 
I hope, however, that, now that Wall Street is 
recovering from its real or affected attack of 
hysterics, this effervescence of mispresentation 
will gradually subside: this result could, I think, 
only be delayed by my saying for publication 
anything more on the subject. 

"I think it is true that the New York papers 
more directly under the influence of Wall Street 
made a systematic attempt to get rid of me as 
AttoruQ' General. I do not think, however, 
that they expected to have any influence with 
you, but, having heard of me as an eccentric 
and rather irascible person, with no very good 
taste for public life, they hoped I would eith«r 
be suflSciently disgusted with the incidents of 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 147 

my position to throw it up, or, else, would do 
something sufficiently injudicious to seriously 
compromise me. They have beoi an annoyance 
but nothing more> and I presume they will get 
tired of their occupation in the course of a little 
while when they see that it produces no re- 
sults. 

"I understand that the New York Sun has 
made some sort of an onslaught on me again, 
but I have not seen the article. Such Uterature 
has lost the charm of novelty for me and I do 
not feel bound to look it up merely to promote 
the virtue of humility. Probably the paper I 
shall read at the Prison Congress will give The 
Sun and other joumaJs of the same type scmie- 
thing new to criticize." 
Replying on August 31, the President wrote: 
"I had not noticed the revival of the story 
that you were to resign in deference to the 
wishes of prominent Hnanciers. I had supposed 
that it had died a natural death with the end, 
temporary or permanent, of the fluny in Wall 
Street. So far from the business being a serious 
embarrassment to me or the service, I think 
it is a good thing. I think the Wall Street 
people have succeeded in establishing in the 
minds of the public at large far more effectually 
than would have been possible for you or my- 



148 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

sdf, the conviction that your course has be^i 
such as to cause the gravest alarm to every 
corrupt man of great wealth." 

The reference to Judge Landis in one of the 
extracts quoted above is explained in the fol- 
lowing letter to the Judge written by Bonaparte 
on August 20, 1907: 

"I take advantage of this occasion to men- 
tion that Mr. Sims called my attention to a 
story printed in some newspapetj purporting 
to give the views of 'a prominent official of the 
Department of Justice/ to the effect that by 
summoning Mr. Rockefeller as a witness, you 
had given him a general immunity. I do not 
believe that any official of this Department is 
responsible for this publication. My es^ieri- 
ence with the newspapers, since I have been 
Attorney General, leads me to pay absolutely 
no attention whatever to any statement which 
they contain, unless it is official or from an 
avowed or responsible source. The probabili- 
ties are that the supposed 'official' was simply 
the reporter himself, who was under orders to 
get up an item. During the recent excitement 
in Wall Street, so many wholly imaginary inter- 
views OP statements were ascribed to me that, 
if I had attempted to correct them, I would 
have given up my whole time to this unsuccess- 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 140 

ful effort. At least it is, I hope, unnecessary 
for me to say that the Department neither 
knew nor approved of the publication in ques- 
tion." 

On December 31, 1907, Bonaparte made an 
address in Chicago in which he said: 

"Americans as a nation think their laws are 
meant to be obeyed by all alike, by the rich 
no less than by the poor, by the enlight«ied 
no less than by the ignorant. Moreover, they 
wish and intend their laws to be thus obeyed, 
and that the richest law-breaker who ever 
crushed out competition through a 'trust' shaU 
find no greater favors from courts or juries or 
public prosecutors than the meanest criminal 
who counterfeits our coins or sends obscene 
matter through the mails. 

"The danger in this respect is that the people 
may be deceived: and in fact I believe that a 
widespread, persistent, systematic and un- 
scrupulous attempt to deceive the people as to 
these things has been in progress during the 
entire official life of the present national ad- 
ministration and is in progress today." 

In expressing his approval of this address, 
President Roosevelt, in a letter to Bonaparte 
under date of December ^, 1907, improved 
the opportunity to assure the Attorney-General 



150 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

of his cordial and unqualified satisfacticm with 
his adnunistration of his department: 

**I must congratulate you on your admirable 
i^>eech at Chicago. You said the very things 
that it was good to say at this time. What 
you said bore especial weight because it rq>re- 
sented what you had done. You have shown 
by what you have actually accomp^shed that 
the law is enforced against the wealthiest cor- 
poration, and the richest and most powerful 
manager or manipulator of that corporation, 
just as resolutely and fearlessly as against the 
humblest citizen. The Department of Justice 
is now in very fact the Department of Justice, 
and justice is meted out with an even hand to 
great and small, rich and poor, weak and strong. 
Those who have denounced you and the action 
of the Department of Justice are either misled 
or else are the very wrong-doers, and the agents 
of the very wrong-doers, who have for so many 
years gone scot-free and flouted the laws with 
impunity. Above all, you are to be congratu- 
lated upon the bitterness felt and e^rest 
towards you by the representatives and agents 
of the great law-defying corporations of im- 
mense wealth who, until within the last half 
dozen years, have treated themselves and have 
expected others to treat them as being beyond 
and above all possible check from law/' 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 151 

It should be put on record here that the Presi- 
dent, obviously determined that there should 
be no doubt in history as to his estimate of 
Bonaparte's services, subsequently published in 
full in his "Autobiography" the letter from 
which the above extract is taken, saying of him 
in connection with it that Bonaparte had been 
a "peculiarly close friend and adviser through 
the period covered by my public life in high 
office," possessing "understanding sympathy 
with my social and industrial programme." 
Also, in his "Autobiography," Roosevelt says: 
"Messrs. Knox, Moody and Bonaparte, who 
successively occupied the position of Attorney 
General xmder me, were profound lawyers and 
fearless and able men; and they completely 
established the newer and more wholesome 
doctrine under which the Federal Government 
may now deal with monopoUstic combinations 
and conspiracies." 



CHAPTER XIV 

ATTORNEY-GENERAL 

(concluded) 

THE persistent newspaper assaults upon 
Bonaparte did not for a moment dis- 
turb his equanimity. His sense of 
humor was equal to all emergencies and both 
peiplexed and annoyed his critics. On one 
occaaon when he emerged from the White 
House into a gathering of correspondents, he 
surveyed them with the Bonaparte smile and 
in his peculiar intonation asked: "Have you 
gentlemen fully arranged for my retirement 
from the Cabinet?" When they asked if there 
was any news about the trusts, he repUed : " No, 
not a thing. The trusts, you know, are rejoic- 
ing over the languor of the Department of Jus- 
tice." On another occasion when he was asked 
about the appeal which had been taken from 
■the famous $29,000,000 decision of Judge Landis 
in the Standard Oil case, he replied: 

"I have never been accustomed to try my 
cases in the newspapers, and this course seems 
to me peculiarly inappropriate when the case 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL ISS 

in question has just been tried and decided in 
one court and will be, in all human probability, 
soon tiied and decided again in another. 

"The government's views were adequately 
presented in the first mentioned tribunal, and 
will be, I hope and believe, no less adequately 
presented on appeal. If any of the public wish 
to imderstand the facts in the meantime I com- 
mend to their consideration not the special 
pleading of paid officers of either party to the 
controvert, but the opinion of Judge Landis, 
a judicial savant of the people, paid and sworn 
to do exact justice to both parties." 

His obvious indifference to the attacks upon 
him had the natural effect of adding to the fury 
of them. He was not merely indifferent, he 
was decidedly contemptuous. Once when he 
returned to Baltimore just after a report had 
heea sent broadcast that he was suffering a 
"nervous collapse" because of his disagreement 
with the President, he 3aid to a local reporter 
who had expressed surprise at his vigorous ap- 
pearance and had asked if he was intending to 
resign and was out of favor with Roosevelt: 

"So far as I know both statements have their 
source in the exuberant fancy of certain enter- 
prising and ima^ative gentlemen of the press. 
I was not aware that I had the least idea of 



154 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

retiring from the Cabinet at present, until I 
saw tliat I had in the newspapers, and I was 
equally ignorant of any change in my relations 
to the President until this interesting fact was 
discovered by some argus-eyed ptirveyor of 
truth to the public through the press. 

"I see on the same unimpeachable authority, 
that I have passed only some W days in Wash- 
ington during the five months which have 
elapsed since I became Attorney General, de- 
vote only three or four hours a week to my 
official duties and am on the vei^ of a complete 
nervous collapse. 

"Undoubtedly the authors of these state- 
ments know much more about the facts than I 
do, but to my mistaken apprehension they seem 
to be far ahead of Gulliver and formidable rivals 
of Munchausen." 

Nothing could have been more false than the 
charge that Bonaparte neglected his official 
duties. The most noteworthy characteristic of 
his administration of the Department of Justice 
was his personal participation in its work. As 
noted in a previous chapter, he declared yhea 
entering upon its duties that he should always 
remember that his first task was to personally 
protect the interests of the government in the ' 
Supreme Court. During his occupancy he took 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL lfi6 

part in fully twice as many cases in the Supreme 
Court as any of his immediate predecessors had 
taken, winning a majority of them. He wrote 
personally 135 of the 138 opinions which were 
given out, work that his predecessors had left 
nearly or quite entirely to assistants, and ex- 
amined personally and reported himself to the 
President on all applications for pardons. In 
fact, the only fault found with him in the De- 
partment was that he tried to "run everything 
himself," saying that he wished to make his 
own mistakes. 

Writing about his experience with the trusts, 
in the article already cited, which was published 
in The Century Magazine, in March, 1910, Bona- 
parte said: 

"Perhaps the subjects on which my eq>eri- 
ence as a Cabinet officer led me to change my 
opinions most seriou;^ were the character and 
standing of the Press. While Attorney General, 
I was strongly, though vainly, urged by a cer- 
tain public man to 'let up' on a certain great 
Trust, and, during an interview on this sub- 
ject, he told me the Trust he championed was 
prepared to support some measures believed 
to be favored by the Administration, and, in- 
deed, had already 'issued orders to all the news- 
papers it owne d' to advocate the measure in 



156 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAFABTE 

question. A week or ten days later he could pro- 
duce a lai^e bundle of clq^uigs, which pToved, 
he said, that these orders had been truly issued 
and dutifully obeyed. I did not examine the 
clq>pings, but I had then and have now no 
doubt that he correctly stated their purport; 
for I abeady knew something of the relations 
ensUng between the so-called 'interests* and 
some supposed organs of public opinion. 

"Soon after I became Attome;y General, I 
received a succession of vi«ts from a number of 
prominent lawyers representing differ^it cor- 
porations or clusters of coiporations with which 
the Government was, or expected socm to be, 
in litigation, their professed purpose being to 
effect, if possible, satisfactory adjustments. The 
counsd were invariably courteous, but suggested 
only indulgence to their respective clients and, 
most of all, delay; and I finally said, in com- 
pany which made it possible that the remark 
mij^t perhaps reach the ears of some of them, 
that I considered further conversation between 
us futile; for, evidently, they only wanted to 
find out if I proposed to do my duty in earnest, 
and they might as well understand, once for 
all, that I did. Perhaps by a mere coincidence, 
their visits to the Department ceased there- 
after, and, a little later, I heard, from one of 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 157 

those agencies which sometimes volmiteer in- 
formation to a public officer, that two news- 
papers, somewhat notoriously idaitified with 
'interests' allied to the persecuted Trusts, had 
informed their respective Washington repre- 
s^tatives of their intention to * write me out 
of the Department of Justice.' According to 
the report, it was not, indeed, supposed that 
the President could be thus influenced to my 
prejudice; but I was understood to be an eccen- 
tric and irascible personage, with little real 
liking for public life; and it was hoped that a 
moderate dose of vituperation and calumny 
would lead me either to throw up my job in 
disgust or to say or do something wrathful which 
mi^t create a scandal. At the time, I paid 
little attention to this story; but the two news- 
papers in question did begin ahnost immediate 
afterwards to favor me with kind commen- 
taries unblemished by any taint of truth and, 
with the backing of sundiy others apparently 
obeying the like inspiration, kept up these at- 
tentions at intervals until I had left the De- 
partment." 

No impartial person can examine the files of 
the newspapers of the coimtry during the year 
1907 and escape the conviction that a wide- 
spread conspiracy of the kind Bonaparte de- 



158 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

scribed was in existence and in active operation. 
It persisted in its assaults upon him till the end 
of his service, though it was less active in 1908 
owing to the fact that proceedings against 
trusts were held In abeyance because of the 
Presidential campaign. 

But in spite of this hostile attitude of a por- 
tion of the press, he was not without friends 
and admirers among the people. Suggestions 
of him as a Presidential candidate were made 
in several qiuirters and letters reached him 
urging him to allow his name to be put forward. 
To one of these, written from Salt lake City, 
he replied as follows, under date of January 20, 
1908: 

"I am duly in receipt of your letter of the 
15th instant, with enclosures, and beg to thank 
you sincerely for your kind expressions and 
intimations. It should, however, be distinctly 
understood that there can be no serious thought 
of my candidacy for the Presidency or any 
other political preferment. Such candidal^ is 
wholly out of the questicm, and, while I am, of 
course, gratified by any egressions of approval 
which may be spontaneously made, such ex- 
pressions are even more gratifying when they 
are accompanied by an expression of an opinion 
as to the desirability of including my name in 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 159 

the list of Presidential possibilities in which I 
have no desire to be included." 

On the eve of his departure from office Bona- 
parte gave free rein to his humor giving to the 
press what he called his "official will" in which 
he "bequeathed to his successor the following 
choice collection of actions under the anti-trust 
law": 

"Action against the Standard Oil Trust, 
second attempt. 

"Action against the Tobacco Trusty to dis- 
solve the monopoly in smoke. 

"Action against the Powder Trust, with pos- 
sibilities for pyrotechnics. 

"Action against the Turpentine and Naval 
Stores Trust — a stinger. 

"Acti<m against the Anthracite Coal Car- 
riers — a hot case. 

"Action against the Harriman railroads — 
not asleep at the switch. 

"Action against the New York, New Haven 
& Hartford Railroad — the cutting of a Mel- 
len." 

His enemies in the press were horrified by 
this new revelation of that flippancy which 
they had sou^t so stroiuously to suppress, 
declaring that it gave final evidence that he 
had never taken his office seriously. His "of- 



160 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ficial will" attracted wide attrition and in- 
q>iied at least one poem which was published 
in the Biooklyn Eagle on March 3, 1909: 

"If Bcmaparte has learned the art 
Of joking that is mildly tart. 

Why, Fate cannot ignore him; 
And, easily, as you'll agree. 
He discounts all his family. 

Though great ones went before him. 

The Corsiean, a serious man. 
Ne'er raised a jest for wits to can 

And spring as quite spontaneous; 
His humor-sense was almost dense. 
Though courtiers stood with eardrums tense 

For laughter instantaneous. 

The little Nap, a dapper chap. 
Kept dignity for aye on tap. 

With scorn for all frivolity; 
It wasn't wise to advertise. 
When he was giving every prize. 

The slightest trend toward jollity. 

Nor tricks nor gore catch Baltimore, 
But satire's pretty sure to score. 

And here's a genuine artist; 
If he would soar there's chance galore, 
He'll maybe run for Governor 

As just a Bonapartist I" 



CHAPTER XV 
HUMOK IN OFFICIAL LIFB 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT was wont to 
say that his sense of humor carried 
him through official trials and perplexi- 
ties which otherwise might have proved in- 
tolerable. Bonaparte's humor was a constant 
joy to Roosevelt and was one of the qualities 
which attracted the President. In fact, the 
Roosevelt administration, as every one familiar 
with its personnel knew, was distinguished for 
its ability to perceive and its eagerness to re- 
joice in the hiunorous aspect of things. The 
Presidait was an inveterate jolcer and the man- 
bers of his official household were keenly re- 
sponsive to his lead. A typical instance oc- 
curred while Bonaparte was Attorney-General. 
The President had been requested by the Secre- 
tary of AgriciJture to obtain proper labels for 
various brands of whiskey as required under 
the Pure Food Law. Roosevelt referred the 
request to Bonaparte, who responded with an 
elaborate opinion in which, after discussing at 



162 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ctmsido^le length the subject of what con- 
stituted whiskey, he reached these conclusions: 

"The following seem to me appropriate speci- 
men brands or lab^ for 

"(1) 'Straight* whiskey. 

"(2) A mixture of two or more 'straight' 
whiskies. 

"(3) A mixture of 'stnught' whisky and 
ethyl alcohol, and 

"(4) Alcohol flavored and colored; as to 
taste, smell and look like whiskey. 

"(1) Semper Idem whiskey: a pure, straight 
whiskey mellowed by age. 

"(2) E Pluribus Unum whiskey: A blend of 
pure, straight whiskies with all the merits of 
each. 

"(3) Modem Improved whiskey: A com- 
pound of pure grain distillates, mellow and 
free from harmful impurities. 

"(4) Something better than whiskey: An 
imitation under the pure food law, free from 
fusel oil and other impmities. 

"In the third specimen it is assumed that 
both the whiskey and the alcohol are distilled 
from grfun." 

In transmitting the opinion to the Secretary 
of Agriculture the President wrote; 

"I agree with this opinion and direct that 



HUMOR m OFFICIAL LIFE' 168 

action be taken in accordance with it. Straight 
whisky will be labeled as such. A mixture 
of two or more straight whiskies will be labeled 
blended whisky or whiskies. A mixture of 
straight whiskey and ethyl alcohol^ provided 
that there is a sufficient amount of straight 
whidcey to make it genuinely a 'mixture,' will 
be labeled as compound or compounded with 
pure grain distillate. Imitation whiskey will 
be labeled as such." 

The opinion excited the wrath of both dis- 
tillers and blenders and greatly incensed the 
prohibitionists and anti-saloon people. The 
corresponding secretary of the Anti-Saloon 
League of America wrote a furious letter to 
the President, citing the label, *'E Pluribus 
Unum whiskey," etc., and adding: "I cannot 
think that yourself or the Attorn^ General 
can have used any such langui^e what (sic) 
would seem to justify the appropriation of the 
national motto as a name for a grade of whis- 
key and to guarantee the same as a compound 
of 'pure, straight whiskies,' and 'with all the 
merits of each.' " 

TTie President sent this letter to Bonaparte 
with this inscription in his own hand. "Oh! 
Oh! Tliis is worse than sinking the Constitu- 
tion! T. R." 



164 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

I am indebted to the Honorable James B. 
Garfield, who was Secretary of the Interior in 
Roosevelt's Cabinet when Bonaparte was also 
a member of it, for the following incident at 
one of the Cabinet meetings. I quote it in Mr. 
Garfield's words: 

*'Mr. Bonaparte had sent some special agents 
to the Territoiy of New Mexico for the pur- 
pose of investigating certain charges that had 
been made regarding pubUc land transactions. 
Ciovemor Curry came to Washington for a 
confer^ice r^arding those matters. Curry 
was an interesting character, an ex-Rough 
Rider, who, after the Spanish war, served with 
the Constabulary in the Philippines. He was 
appointed Governor of the Territoiy of New 
Mexico because the President believed that he 
would be able to handle the situation which 
was rather acute at that time. 

"The Governor told me that he was having 
difficulty with the special agents sent by Mr. 
Bonaparte; that they were men who knew 
nothing about the West and Western condi- 
tions, I told him he should have a conference 
with Mr. Bonaparte and felt sure that he could 
reach an amicable solution of the difficulty. 
He objected, stating as his reason that Mr. 
Bonapuie knew nothing of the West. I, how- 



HUMOR IN OFFICIAL LIFE 165 

ever, insisted on the interview. Within an 
hour the Governor returned, his face redder 
than usual. He stated that the interview had 
terminated as he expected and it was useless 
for him to attempt n^otiations with Mr. Bona- 
parte. The Governor reported his int^view 
about as follows: 

" 'I told the Attorney General that I didn't 
intend to have any of his damned cheap skates 
Iterating in my territory. In answer the Attor^ 
ney Gener^ said that if that was my opinion it 
was probably useless for us to continue the in- 
terview.* 

**I told the Governor that I did not think 
his approadi to the Attorney General showed 
the £ne diplomacy that I expected him to use. 

"The matter was of extreme importance as 
bearing upon the relations of the Department 
of Justice and the Department of the Interior. 
I told the President, informally, of what had 
occurred and he agreed that he would bring the 
matter up at Cabinet meeting the next day. 

"Hie President brought it up with his usual 
tact and humor, stating about as follows: 

" 'I understand that a matter of serious im- 
portance has arisen between the Departmoits 
of Justice and Interior, of such importance as 
to require Cabinet action. I am advised that 



166 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

yesterday the Goveroor of Nev libxico, a most 
diplomatic goitleniaii, at a conference with the 
Attorn^ General, entered a protest against 
certain agents of the Department d Justice 
operating in New Mexico, that the Attorney 
General declined to entertain the protest and 
that thereupon the Governor of New Mexico 
had drawn two six-shooters and threatened the 
life of the Attorn^ General. I was further in- 
formed that the Attorney Greneral, with true 
l^al instinct, avoided the issue by disappearing 
through a window, that the Governor followed, 
but fortunately the Attorney Greneral, being 
more agile, escaped the wrath of the diplomatic 
Governor.' 

"The President's remarks were addressed 
directly to the Attorney General. Mr. Bona- 
parte immediately replied that he thou^t, 
when the President and the members of the 
Cabinet thoroughly understood the situation 
they would agree that his actions were entirely 
justified; that the diplomatic Governor had in- 
troduced the subject by referring to the agents 
of the Department of Justice as 'damned cheap 
skates'; that he replied to this characteriza- 
tion stating that the Department of Justice 
was not a hardware store and that if the (jover- 
nor entertained such an opinion of the Depart- 



HUMOR IN OFFICIAL UPE 167 

ment it would be unnecessary to continue the 
caoiereace. 

"At this point Mr. Root, the Secretary of 
State, interrupted with the following: 

" 'Mr. Pre^dent, this is certainly a matter 
for very grave Cabinet consideration. We 
certainly cannot permit our Gallic cock to be 
changed into a Curry-ed chicken.' 

"After this remark the question was seriously 
considered and settled without any difficulty. 
It ^owed, however, the hmnor of the Presi- 
dent, Mr. Bonaparte and the Secretary (tf 
SUte." 

It was the custom of President Roosevelt and 
his wife to follow each of the official receptions 
which took place every winter with an infomud 
supper that was served at small tables in the 
corridor which extended across the second story 
of the White House. At each supper the wife 
(rf a different Cabinet Minister was assigned a 
seat at the President's table. No wife was 
given a place at the same table as her husband. 
On one of these occasions Mrs. Bonaparte was 
placed at the Pre^dent's table and with her 
were Secretary Root and the President's sister, 
Mrs. Douglas Robinson. The President was in 
a gay mood, as were Mr. Root and Mrs. Robin- 
son, and th^ capped one another's amuMng 



166 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

anecdotes with much zest and hilarity. Mrs. 
Bonaparte was the quiet member of the party, 
saying Httle but hugely enjoying the rare enter- 
tainment. As Secretary Bonaparte was bidding 
the President good night, he said to him: "Mr. 
President, there was one veiy noisy table this 
evening." "Yes," retorted Roosevelt, looking 
veiy stem, "and that was Mrs. Bonaparte's 
table!" 

One other incident in the closing days of the 
Roosevelt administration greatly amused Bona- 
parte, although it was a bit of unconscious humor 
on the part of the other actor in it. From the 
moment of Taft's election to the Presidency, 
Bonaparte had been looking forward eagerly 
to getting out of office and out of public life. 
He had told Taft that he did not wish to be 
considered by him in the making up of his Cabi- 
net. Taft at first had thought of continuing 
Roosevelt's Cabinet for a time and had so in- 
formed Roosevelt. Later he changed his mind, 
but did not inform the Roosevelt members of 
that fact. Shortly before his inauguration he 
sent a letter to Bonaparte saying, in substance, 
that he r^retted in making up his Cabinet 
that he should be unable to consider his, Bona- 
parte's, name. Mr. £. S. Gauss, who was Bona- 
parte's private Secretary while he was in the 



HUMOR IN OFFICIAL LIFE 169 

Cabinet, says he was present with Bonaparte 
when this letter was received, and that, on 
reading it, Bonaparte threw back his head and 
fairly roared with lauf^ter, saying: "What 
will Garfidd and the others say!" Later he 
wrote to Taft as follows, on February 17» 1909: 

"Your letter caused me much surprise for I 
had supposed it was generally imderstood that 
I expected to retire to private life at the close 
of the present administration. Since last sum- 
mer I have made arrangements to leave Wash- 
ington permanently on March 5, and, soon 
after your election, I gave out an interview 
announcing that I neither expected nor desired 
to hold ai^ public office after the close of Presi- 
doit Roosevelt's term. I had, indeed, let this 
be known previously, and the President has 
been, for a considerable time» aware of the 
fact." 

An interesting glimpse of Bonaparte's con- 
duct and methods in office is a£Forded in this 
description by Mr. Gauss: 

"In the office he was never idle and never 
hurried, always good natured and on the look- 
out for a chance to make a joke, not always up 
to top[^form, but when he did put a good one 
over it was worth having. He had schooled 
himself to absolute mental cohtroL He ap- 



170 CHARLES JOSEPH BOXAPABTE 

{larently allowed himself do mental itStsas, 
lie WW* able to read word bv wwd and at Ar 
Dame time read rapidly, but he was modem&m 
itiMslf in writing. He deatfy loved to get a pad 
and pencil and put down letter by letto- flae 
thought he had in mind and painstakingty ivi>- 
bing out the wrong word or the pooc^ made 
letter. 

"In the rush of departmoit bmancMt, H waa 
agony to wait for him to write out a thiee-Gne 
endorsement by hand and I devoted a good 
de^ of planning to schemes to keq> pqpv sad 
a pencil away from him. 

"There were generally a number cf mattes 
on which decision had been def^red and {re- 
quently in the morning he would s^, 'Wdi, 
let's call the docket/ and about 4.30 he would 
say, 'I think we cau adjourn court now.* He 
hated making official calls which had to be made 
after office hours, and his commait next day 
waa whether or not he had the luck to find the 
people not at home. 

"I have a very high and proud recollection 
of the Ume I was privileged to be with him. I 
presume a private secretary might be called 
the valet of a great man*s mental processes. 
t think Mr. Bonaparte was a great man. If 
h» had beoi raised in the oommim way of liCe 



HUMOR IN OFFICUL LIFE 171 

he would have made a more prominent conven- 
tional figure, possibly would have been ranked 
with those we call oiu- great moi, but he 
achieved to be a unique characta." 

Mr. Gauss says that Bonaparte did not like 
to talk of the Bonapartes, that he refused all 
applications to write about them and habitually 
spoke of Napoleon with condemnation. He was 
badgered constantly to buy Napoleonic relics 
of one kind or another, and always replied in 
letters like the following, written from the Navy 
Department on August 18, 1905 : 

"You have been misinformed as to my being 
an 'extensive collector of Napoleonana*; in 
fact I have made it a rule, for a great niunber 
of years, never, under any circumstances, to 
acquire by purchase a relic or memento of the 
Bonaparte family." 

One other letter, written at about the same 
time, shortly after he had delivered an address 
on "Anarchism," may be cited in evidence of 
his perennial humor: 

"My mail includes now a great many letta*s 
from cranks of various degrees, some denounc- 
ing and some approving of my views about 
Anardiism and its remedies. One of them cov- 
ered, not merely his letter, but his envelope, 
with ferocious mticism in red crayon; the con- 



172 CHABLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

dnsiafi of this bong: *^edoo, — are yoa not 
the SDOoeam of I^nl Morton ?* I saf^tose that 
I most admit that I am, and he may think that 
I am taking his advio^ tot I leave for Lenox 
eaity tomonoir.'* 



CHAPTEE XVI 
RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 

FEW men who had held high positions in 
the public service ever returoed to private 
life more joyful^ than did Bonaparte 
when he went out of office with President Boose* 
relt in March, 1908. He had, in facti as his 
corresptnideace shows, been looking forward 
eagerly to his return for nearly a year before 
it came. Though he had been deeply interested 
in hb professional work and conscientiously 
devoted to it, his distaste for pohtics and his 
slight respect for politicians had made the polit- 
ical side of it irksome to him. He remained as 
little as possible in Washington, pas«ng his 
week-ends and holidays in Baltimore or at his 
country place outside that city and doing much 
of his work there, as well as on the trains be- 
tween Baltimore and Washmgton. When his 
official life ended, ther^ore, it coidd not be 
stud so much that he returned to Baltimore as 
that he had ceased to go to Washington. 

He dropped back readily and naturally into 
his old life. His former clients returned to him 



174 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

and he resumed his law practice where he had 
left it off three years earlier substantially un- 
changed. As for his activities in bdialf of honest 
goveinment in Baltimore and Maryland^ he had 
continued those undiminished while in the 
Cabinet, making frequent addresses in each 
campaign, and these he maintained after his 
return until the day of his death. In 1900 he 
renewed the opposition to the Disfranchising 
Amendments to the State Constitution which 
he had begun in 1905 and succeeded in secur- 
ing their final defeat. He also continued with 
unabated zeal his advocacy of Civil Service 
R^orm and Municipal Government Reform, 
attending r^ularly the annual meetings of the 
two leagues devoted to those causes, and making 
many addresses on those and kindred subjects 
in various parts of the countiy, in response to 
demands which came to him constantly and 
which he seldom refused. 

In general, it ts to be said of these later ad- 
dresses that while they were marked with the 
same superior literary quality which distin- 
guished all of his forensic efforts, they were 
somewhat more daborate in construction and 
more philosophic in tone than his earlier ones, 
revealing clearly the wide range of his reading 
and his intimate knowledge of the works of the 



RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 175 

best and most serious minds of past and present 
times. 

Speaking as the President of the National 
Municip^ League before the Canadian Club at 
Montreal in April, 1910, he said: 

"The one thing indispensable, the one thing 
without which good government of any kind or 
degree is impossible, and which, under reason- 
able limitations, takes the place and supplies 
the want of all others, is good men. If you 
have as public officers men thoroughly honor- 
able and conscientious and also sufficiently in- 
telligent and sufficiently educated to under- 
stand and discharge their duties, you will have, 
whatever the defects of your statutes or cus- 
toms, a good government; if your places of 
public trust are filled by ignorant, incompetoit, 
self-seeking or unscrupulous men, you may 
midtiply checks and balances, you may devise 
all sorts of ingenious and complicated safe- 
guuds, but, whatever its sdentific merits in 
theory, your machine of govonment will in 
practice work ill. Institutions are in politics 
what fortifications are in war; each, if well 
planned, may aid good and brave men to do 
their duty; neither can take the place of such 
men. It was not breastworks nor rifiepits that 
stopped Pickett at Gettysburg; a brave enemy 



176 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

win ever have a picnic with forts and big guns 
and all sorts of elaborate engines of destruction 
whose defenders take to their heels; and in ad- 
ministHiUon, no less than warfare, it is, after 
all, the human element that counts." 

In an address on "The Civic Responsibilities 
of Girls," at Bryn Mawr School, on June 4, 
1910, he gave utterance to views that are of 
specif interest in these later days of woman 
suffrage: 

"The effect of steady, unremitting talk on 
the part of all the women in a community as 
to a matter about which they are really in ear- 
nest may weD be almost terrible. King Agesilaos 
said that no Spartan woman had ever seen the 
smoke of an enemy's camp fire. This was true 
very largely because the women themselves 
were so thorou^ly in earnest as to how those 
called to keep enemies at a distance fulfilled 
their duties. How thoroughly they were in 
earnest was rather pathetically illustrated by 
the fate of the sole survivor of Thermopylae. 
The laws of Sparta forbade a Spartan citizen to 
retiim from a lost battle; if he reappeared in 
the City except as a victor, no matter who he 
was or what might be his e^:uses, he was in- 
stantly put to death. At ThermopylBe Leonidas 
repulsed on successive days two detachments of 



RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 177 

Peman troops and, in the ni^t following the 
second of these engagements, learned that his 
position had been turned through the capture 
by surprise of a path over the mountains. Be- 
fore the third attack, in which the King and 
all his followers fell, Leonidas sent off one of 
the three hundred Spartan citizens who were 
under his command, a certain Aristod^nos, 
to acquaint the authorities at Sparta with the 
inqiending destruction of his entire force. When 
Aristodemos reached Sparta, the question arose 
whether he ought not to be executed, and the 
answer turned on whether the conflicts in the 
Pass were to be considered as one battle or as 
three. After prolonged deliberation by the 
Gerousia, or Spartan Senate, it was decided to 
give Ariatodemos the benefit of the doubt; but 
this decision was extremely distasteful to the 
Spartan women, who, unlike those of most 
other Greek cities^ took and were encouraged to 
take a profoxmd and lively interest in pubUc 
affairs. 

"The widows of those who had fallen at Ther- 
mopylae therefore adopted the amiable practice 
of telling Aristodemos whenever they met him 
that, since he had returned, they supposed they 
would soon see their husbands again, and these 
and other similar kind remarks made poor Aris- 



178 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

todemos regret that the Gerousia had decided 
his case as it did. Consequently when he fought 
at Plateea* he rushed alone into the Persian 
lines, slew many of the enemy and obtained 
the death he coveted; but his braveiy in no 
wise disarmed the hostility of his fair critics. 
It was shown that he had not awaited the order 
to charge and, since disobedience to orders is 
a mortal sin among a military people, his re- 
mains were not accorded the honors of a Spar- 
tan citizen's funeral. 

"I am not pr^ared to advise you to imitate 
the ladies of Sparta in all respects, but, as we 
have seen, their unbending severity towards 
any breach, even if one merely constructive, of 
the strictest code of military duty among Spar- 
tan men, had its reward. They saw no smoke 
of an enemy's camp-fire, because they saw to 
it that the men of Sparta were not desirable 
neighbors for those who would light such camp- 
fires. You will be able to render one day the 
same office to sons and brothers, lovers and 
husbands, called in your time to deal with ene- 
mies, bitter and dangerous enemies, to good 
government, to pure politics, to honesty and 
fair dealing in public hfe." 

In an address at Utica, N. Y., at about the 
same date he said: 



BETURN TO PRIVATE UFE 179 

" 'No man is free who is not master of him- 
self*; no voter is free who is not, in truth and 
not in mere se[nb]ance> master of his vote; no 
people^ whatever the name or form of its gov- 
ernment, is ft%e unless its rulers are those, and 
those only, it would have as rulers. If its ac- 
tion be hampered, its wishes be over-ridden, in 
their choice, whether this constraint be the work 
of a foreign conqueror, a legal autocrat, or oli- 
garchy, or an extra-legal ruler or ruling body, a 
'boss' or a *ring,' a 'leader,' a 'machine' or an 
'organization,' thai, in all these cases alike, 
the result is the same, the people is not free, a 
commimity thus governed has not self-govem- 
moit. 

"Of course, it may have good government, 
much better government than it could give it- 
self. Freedom to a baby means death; to a 
youth it means often the wreck of all present 
or future usefulness and happiness: even a 
young man 1^ too soon 

" ' Lord of himself, that heritage of woe I ' 

m&y have every reason to echo the bitter 
words of the poet. So a people, as suggested 
by Mr- Mill, may be in a state of 'nonage* 
social^ and politically, which, for a time at 
least, would make self-govemm«it in its case 



180 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

no less a * heritage of woe' than for the un- 
tnuned, unformed individual. Such a people 
may well thank Heaven if it find, as Mr. Mill 
says, *an Akbar or a Charlemagne,' that is 
to say J a just, wise, brave, imselfish 'boss* 
(whether he may call himself King, Emperor, 
Dictator or something else matters little) or 
an enlightened and public-spirited 'ring' or 
'machine' (whose members may or may not 
be em*olled in a Golden Book) to guide its in- 
fant stq>s in national life: but the American 
Nation is not such a people, and our political 
leaders and organizations fulfil no such self- 
sacrificing function." 

Speaking before the Gilman County School 
in Baltimore, in Februaiy, 1911, on the point 
that a inan*8 poUtical opinions in no way affect 
his fitness for a non-political office, he made the 
followuig quotation from Macaulay: 

"'The points of difference between Chris- 
tianity'^ and Judaism have very much to do with 
a man*s fitness to be a Bishop or a Rabbi. But 
ihej' hftv« no more to do with his fitness to be 
M ittA|({strate, a legislator or a minister of finance, 
llwn with his fitness to be a cobbler. Nobody 
\vn* vwv thought of compelling cobblers to 
luakt^ Hit>' declaration of the true faith of the 
Christian. Any man would rather have his 



RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 181 

shoes mended by a heretical cobbler than by a 
person who had subscribed all the thirty-nine 
articles, but had never handled an awl. Men 
act thuSf not because they are indifferent to 
religion^ but because they do not see what re- 
ligion has to do with the maiding of their shoes. 
Yet religion has as much to do with the mend- 
ing of shoes as with the budget and the army 
estimates.' 

"And" [said Bonaparte]} "politics have as 
much to do with the mending of shoes as with 
the arrest of criminals or the extinction of fires. 
The points of difference between Republicanism 
and Donocracy have very much to do with a 
man's fitness to be a President or a Congress- 
man, but they also have nothing in the world 
to do with his fitness to be a policeman or a 
fironan." 

In another address, at Wilmington, Del., also 
in February, 1911, he said: 

"When I was an Overseer of Harvard, I was 
much impressed by a remark made once by 
President EUot to the effect, in substance, that 
if we would have a man give himself up wholly, 
without reserve and without thought of con- 
sequoices, to any work or any cause, we should 
hold out to him rewards with no commercial 
value; a mere new name, a trinket and a bit 



184 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

of ribbon, a metal disk with a few graven letters, 
simple mention in a report or an order; it is 
for such things as these that men throw away 
their interests and their pleasures and their 
very lives. Colonel Napier, refuting the argu- 
ment, used in his day to justify the pillage of a 
town taken by storm, that soldiers would not 
fight unless they had the hope of loot (just as, 
even in our day, it has been argued that sailors 
would not fight unless they had the hope of 
prize money), declares, with obvious truth, 
that of all the hundreds of men who scrambled 
through or fell in the breaches of Badajos not 
one, if sane and free to choose, would have faced 
such danger for ten times the money value of 
all the plunder he could expect to find. Such 
work is not done for mere money or money's 
worlJi; when we ask a man to take his life in 
his hands, a big dividend isn't 'in it' as a bait 
if <'onipared with a little medal. It cannot be 
said that municipal reformers ask their fellow 
citizens to face imminent danger to life or limb, 
lull they do ask these fellow citizens to join in 
u tedious and laborious, a costly and embittered 
conflict with powerful and vindictive enemies; 
they swk recruits for a bloodless but obstinate, 
acrimonious and protracted civic w»«^»re; and, 
to secure such enlist' re- 



RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 188 

monber these recognized tacts of human na- 
ture, pointed out by the wisest writers and 
thinkers and proved by the «q>eriaice of man- 
kind.*' 

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Na- 
tiontd Civil Service Reform League at Phila- 
delphia, on December 14, I9I1, he made a strik- 
ing quotation from Washington: 

"If anything is old in American poUtical life, 
it is the doctrine that 'public office is a public 
trust'; if anything is a notoriously foreign im- 
portation or a novel invention it is the doctrine 
that 'to the victor belong the spoils,' or, in 
other words, that the holder of a great ad- 
ministrative office, say, for the sake of illus- 
tration, the mayor of a city like Baltimore, 
does his duty and complies with hb oath when 
he quwters his 'friends,* personal or political, 
on the taxpayers for support. Compare with 
the discreditable sophistry which seeks to jus- 
tify such official conduct the plam words of 
Washington. He says in one of his letters: 

'My frigid I receive with cordial welcome. 
He is welcome to my house and welcome to my 
heart; but with all his good qualities he is not 
a man of business. His opponent, with all his 
politics so hostile to me, iff a man of business. 
My inivate fedings have nothing to do in the 



184 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

case. I am not George Washington, but Presi- 
dent of the United States. As George Wash- 
ington I would do this man any kindness in 
my power — as President of the United States 
I can do nothing.' " 

In an address entitled "Some Reminiscences 
of a Trust Buster," which he delivered before 
the Boston City Club, on February IS, 1912, 
he said: 

"While Talleyrand was an exile in the United 
States he described the American character as 
marked by two conspicuous traits, a great love 
of liberty and a great thirst for wealth. I am 
not here to discuss whether the Americans of 
his day ought to have been or the Americans 
of today ought to be what he found them; like 
all other men, past and present Americans have 
been and are neither as good nor as bad as men 
may be. But what he said was then and is 
now true. In the century and a sixth which 
have flown since he wrote these words we have 
indeed grown from a few feeble provinces scat- 
tered between the ocean and the wilderness into 
a great nation; vast multitudes of foreigners 
have become, truly or in name, Americans, 
and among the alien elements thus entering 
into our body politic some may be but half or 
three-parts digested; but Americans, whether 



RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE 185 

by birth or adoption, have today the same love 
of liberty and the same thirst for wealth which 
Talleyrand found in the Americans of his day; 
whoi any men really begin to be really Amer- 
icans th^ begin to demand freedom in seeking 
riches." 

In his annual address before the National 
Civil Service League, December 5, 191S, he 
^owed that in spite of reform success in Mary- 
land abuses still lingered in the public service 
of the State: 

"During the legislative session before the last 
one, it had been a source of great difficulty 
to the statesmen to find titles for the employees. 
They called them doorkeepers, but there were so 
many more doorkeepers than there were doors 
that they had to have their assistants and sec- 
imd assistants and deputy doorkeepers. I be- 
lieve they had a flag raiser who was paid five 
dollars a day for raising the flag, no other em- 
ployee being able to spend the five minutes 
necessary to do that; they also had an assistant 
flag raiser who was to look on while the flag 
iwser raised the flag." 



CHAPTER XVn 

FAVORED ROOSEVELT FOR PRESIDENT 
IN 1912 

IN the triangular Presidential contest of 
1912, Bonaparte was an earnest supporter 
of the candidacy of Roosevelt. He took 
fliat position without a moment's hesitation or 
diadow of doubt because of his complete under- 
standing of and implicit &ith in Roosevelt's 
duuncter and abihty, a faith based ux>on a 
knowledge that had been acquired in many 
years of close intimacy and upon official asso- 
ciation in the administration of the national 
government. He not onify had absolute faith 
in him but a genuine and deep affection for him 
and a profound admiration for his talents as a 
leader and ruler. All this he revealed in the 
sympathetic and beautiful tribute which lie 
paid to Roosevelt at the time of his death, in 
which he said: 

"Theodore Roosevelt was a man of extraor- 
dinary powers and, to iJiose who knew him well 
and imderstood him, a man of most attractive 
character and qualities. Doubtless he was 



FAVORED ROOSEVELT 187 

sometimes gravely misunderstood: his moital 
processes were so abnormally rapid, that he 
often seined to act with little or no reflection, 
when he had, in fiact, considered the question 
at issue most thoroughJy and conscientiously 
ijthough, perhaps, in one-tenth of the time 
which would have been needed for the purpose 
by an ordioaiy man. Moreover the strength 
of his convictions and the vivacity of his speech 
and manner confused and frightened timid 
men or those who knew him but slightly, and 
led them to think of and describe him as arbi- 
trary and overbearing: he was, in truth, some- 
what exceptionally anxious for information, 
assistance and advice h<om those for whom he 
felt respect and in whom he had confidence; 
but only one who wasn't afraid of him could 
fairly judge or reaXiy like him. He had the 
stem sense of duty, the lofty purpose and the 
strict morals of puritanism, without any of its 
prudishness or pharisaism or affectation of vir- 
tue. He detested falsehood in every form and 
shams of every kind, and, throughout his long 
and stormy career as a public servant and a 
poUtical leader, always fought fairly and in 
the open, and was restrained by the instincts 
of a gentleman and the scruples of a man of 
honoi. It were needless to speak of his patriot- 



188 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

ism or his courage, — the events of his life suf- 
ficiently attest these, — but it is the firm belief 
of the writer that his profound wisdom, the un- 
selfishness of his devotion to duty, and his im- 
mense usefulness to his country will be more 
clearly recognized and more highly esteemed 
by each successive generation of Americans in 
our national future." 

Holding this opinion as strongly in 1913 as 
he did in 1919, Bonaparte could see no question 
of choice for him between Roosevelt and any 
other candidate for the Presidency. In his 
campaign speeches he expressed the same views 
as those quoted. In one of them, delivered 
shortly after the attempt on Roosevelt's hfe 
at Milwaukee, on October 14, 1912, reviewing 
the issues of the campaign and the qualifications 
of the three candidates, he said : 

" The outrage at Milwaukee showed that Theo- 
dore Roosevelt has certain qualities of inestima- 
ble value in a President : courage, self-forgetful- 
ness, patriotism, inflexible firmness of purpose, 
coolness and presence of mind in a moment of 
natural agitation and perfect calmness of judg- 
ment amid physical pain and danger. True, 
he had displayed all these quahties before and 
his firm hold on the people's respect and affec- 
tion was largely due to this very fact: but the 



FAVORED ROOSEVELT 189 

act of the wretch who tried to kill him gave 
him an opportmii^ to recall to the memory of 
his fellow countiymoi how worthy he is to be 
their President: the most hard-headed, the least 
sentimental of voters may be very reasonably 
inBuenced in casting his ballot by this veiy 
striking object-lesson. To elect an mifit man 
to the Presidency because a miscreant had 
sought his life would be simple folly: to vote 
for a man because he has been proven brave, 
unselfish, thoughtful of his countiy's good, 
tenax propositi and wholly master of himself 
when confronted by great and sudden peril, 
would be to act wisely, worthUy and as a patriot 
in the discharge of one's duty as a voter. If 
Theodore Roosevelt shall gain votes by reason 
of his attempted murder, it will be because he 
has shown that he deserved to gain these votes, 
because he has proven himself yet more clearly 
than he had been proven before worthy to be 
once more this great Nation's President." 

In 1916 Bonapute urged strongly the nomi- 
nation of Roosevelt as the Republican candi- 
date. Vfhsa Mr. Hughes was made the nominee, 
he decided to support him chiefly on the groimd 
of disapproval of President Wilson's course. 
In the single campaign speech which he made, 
before the Progressive State Central Committee 



190 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

of Maryland, on Septonber 15, 1916, he said, 
after revi e win g iraatm's Mexican and ine-war 
polides: 

**Bfr. Hughes is not the man I wished to see 
nconinated for the Presidency: like the electicoi 
of Mr. Taft in 1908; like the election of Mr. 
unison in 1912, his Section, if he shall be dected, 
vin be, in some measure, an expoiment, and, 
in our present irritical position, I ui^ed the 
choice of a man who had been already tried in 
this great trust and who had made good. But 
Mr. Hughes' record of public service will make 
his choice, if he be chosen, at least a promising 
experiment; and I must ^ve him my vote when 
the only alternative is to promote, directly or 
indirectly, the election of a man whose adminis- 
tration had been, to my mind, a signal and 
ignominious failure. I make no prediction as 
to the result in November; I neither expect 
nor desire to take any active part in the cam- 
paign, nor, in the event of Mr. Hughes' success, 
to have any say, except as a critic, with regard 
to his course, whether in Maryland or else- 
where." 



CHAPTER XVm 
ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 

IT was not only natural but inevitable that 
a roan in such complete accord with Theo- 
dore Roosevelt on questions pertaining to 
national defense as Bonaparte had shown him- 
self to be while Secretary of the Navy, should 
take his stand with him on the question of pre- 
paredness when the great World War b^an. 
It cannot be said that Bonaparte followed 
Roosevelt's lead in the matter, for the two men 
took the field together, each discerning earfy in 
the conflict the danger which threatened the 
country through inaction and delay. Both 
men were earnestly striving by public appeals 
to arouse the nation to a realization of its peril 
early in the year 1914. A few days after wu 
was declared in August, 1914, Bonaparte began 
the publication of a series of articles in the Balti- 
more Evening Sun, uiging the need of immediate 
measures of preparedness. In one on August 
15, he said: 

"While we retain our calmness it is our 
place to recall to mind those less happy in 



192 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

the changeless and eternal principles of justice 
and taix dealing; but, in doing this, we must 
shun as an abomination all affectation of 
Pharisaical self-righteousness and never foi^et, 
even for a moment, that tomorrow we may be 
at war ourselves, and it is our good fortune, 
not at all our superior virtue or wisdom, which 
keeps us at peace today. For this reason 
demonstration of protest against all wars and 
grandmotherly lectures to the belligerents are 
mete foolishness at a time like this; such talk 
addressed to people whose native land is in 
great peril and whose sons and brothers are 
meeting death in its defense is always received 
with a mixture of exasperation and ridicule and 
breeds only dislike and contempt for its sources. 
If we would have our warring brethren listen 
to us, what we say must show them we own 
ourselves men of precisely the same clay as 
theirs and only through the inscrutable decrees 
of God's providence, for the moment, more 
blessed." 

In another, on August 23, under the title of 
"Preparedness and Progress," he said: 

"By all means let us never draw our sword 
except to promote right, justice and the good 
of mankind; but let us always be sure that 
we have a sword and a sharp one, to draw if 



ATTITDDE IN THE WORLD WAR 19S 

ri^t, justice and tlie good of manluDd require 
that it be drawn and used. In the words of 
Cromwell, let us pray, pray most humbly and 
fervently, for light and help in time of need; 
but let us also ke^ our powder dry, and have 
plenty of it." 

In a third, on August 29. he referred to the 
arguments which pacifists were making against 
preparedness of any kind: 

"The writer has noted recently various pul^ 
licatioDs to the effect that the present general 
war shows the futility of preparedness for war 
as a form of peace insurance. Does life in8u> 
ance prevent a man's death? Does fire insur* 
ance prevoit a house burning up ? Does marine 
insurance prevoit Asps going to the bottom? 
Does casualty insurance make accidents im- 
possible ? In an these cases the calamity against 
which we insure Is just as likely to happen jrith 
insurance as it is without, but its consequences 
may be vastly less disastrous. As a matter of 
fact, however, general preparedness through 
Europe unquestionably did aid veiy materially 
in postponing for many years a war which was 
certain to come some day; just as a man, by 
prudence, sobriety and intdiigent care for his 
health, may prolong his Me, akthttuf^ be is tJie 
destined pny of dettb mam time. It would 



IM CHARLES JOSEPH BOKAPAKIK 

Mem, indeed, that the minds of tfaose peai^ 
who publish the mischievous sophislzies afaore 
noted are, for the most part, quite inqicrnoas 
to truth and reason; but, fortunat^. these 
people make up an infinitenm^ fracticm of tbe 
Mniilble, honest, and patriotic American natkn." 

In an address which he made in Bahimore 
on February IS, 1915, Bonaparte said: 

"Beliltum and Luxembourg cowa onder tbe 
Uenpotlo rule of a foreign soldiery; China lies 
Open to any a^(reasion, the he^less prey of 
any Invader who would insolently seise bv 
IHirtll or UH her territory as battle-fields in fbr- 
al|n wan. It is the plain and solonn duly at 
tuir Federal government and of the American 
NaUuit itaelf to so thoroughly 'provide for the 
<HUUmon defence,' that, if merely human fore- 
dlKltl and valor and sacrifice can prevent the 
iwtaudly. no nueh a fate as this shall ever befall 
tia *«■ our posterity. The Nation owes this 
duty tu every one of the hundred millions of 
liuuiau Iwlnnii or more who rightfully own its 
HWa)* 1 nay. It owes this duty to all the Amer- 
liwUN, now In their honored graves, whose labors, 
NulTttrlnitti, and blood built up and saved this 
gr«ai Dnlun, to all the Am^cans yet unborn 
who iliall Kxdc to us to hand down to them un- 
impaired the heritage of honor and freedom and 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 195 

happiness bequeathed to us by those who have 
gone before. 

"'By our children's golden future, 
By our fathers' stainless shield, 
lliat which God and heroes left us 
We will never, never yield !' 

"We were thus left 'the blessings of liberty 
for ouraelves and our posterity* and a country 
whereof no Americiui need feel ashamed." 

After iq>eaklng of the uselessness of "notes" 
and "protests," and remonstrances of various 
kinds to offending nations, he continued: 

"There is an old legend of a peasant lad, 
who wandered into an enchanted valley and 
foimd there a great army of mail-clad knights 
and, on a huge stone in the midst, a sword and 
a horn. A fairy-like being told him he must 
choose one of the two, and that greatness and 
renown would be his if he chose aright. He 
preferred the horn and blew a loud blast where- 
upcoi the knights and the valley itself melted 
into mist, and a swift wind swept him back 
into his conmion-place life, while a scornful 
voice cried out: 

'* 'Accursed be the coward, that ever he was bom I 
He that would not draw the sword before he 
blew the horn.' 



106 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

"A nation that makes the like choice will 
hear the like words." 

In an address before the National Securily 
League on June 14, 1015, he said: 

"Our rulers and those who make or keep 
them our rulers will bear a terrible responsibility 
if we, a nation of 100,000.000 of people, with 
probably greater natural resources, greater ac- 
cumulated wealth, and greater latent strength 
than any other nation under Heaven, through 
sheer laziness, cowardice, frivohty, or folly, 
shall be left in such a state of self-imposed help- 
lessness that, for us, serious invasion shall mean, 
of necessity, utter defeat and subjugation : this 
is very nearly our state at present." 

He continued to make addresses on these 
lines frequently during 1915, 1916, and 1917. 
recalling the sad experience of the country under 
Jefferson and Madison because of their failures 
in preparedness, and urging the wisdom and 
imperative necessity of profiting by it. In 1917 
he took up the subject of compulsory universal 
training, saying of its effects, in a speech at 
Baltimore on March 36, 1917: 

"We would teach our boys discipline and the 
use of arms, so that they may fight well, pre- 
cisely as we teach them to read and write and 
at least the rudiments of physical scioices and 
history and geography and mathematics, so 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 197 

that they may work to good purpose and in-' 
crease the Nation's wealth, and yet more clearly 
so that they may vote wiUi enlightenmoit and 
public spirit and choose wisely our public ser- 
vants. We would instil into their minds the 
great military virtues of self-sacrifice and obe- 
dience to lawful authority just as we tiy to teach 
them honesty and industry and sobriety, the 
masteiy of their passions and respect for the 
rights of others. Most of all we should seek to 
make them patriots; for, if they do not grow 
up patriots, they will be, in effect, public ene- 
mies, and all the more odious and noxious and 
dangerous pubHc enemies because we have 
given them an education at public expense 
and entrusted to them a share in the govern- 
ment of our country." 

How closely he and Roosevelt were in sym- 
pathy at this time was disclosed in a brief letter 
trom the latter to Bonaparte under date of 
March 14, 1917, in which after speaking of 
various matters, Roosevelt wrote: "Oh Lord I 
I wish I could see you and imburden my soul.** 

After the United States had entered the war 
he made an address before the alumni of the 
Law School of the University of Maryland, at 
Baltimore, on January S9, 1918, when he siud 
of the German requests for an armistice: 

"The Kaiser and his coimselors are like 



108 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

Hamilcar at the close of the First Punic War; 
th^ see that yet further preparation is needful 
to assure victoiy and they need peace to give 
time and opportunity for this further prepara* 
lion. In dealing with them, I would have our 
statesmen bear in mind a story, very probably 
apociyphal, but none the less apposite, of Mar- 
shal Narvaez. He was a Spanish statesman 
and commander, noted for acts of arbitrary 
and ruthless severity; and, when he was about 
to die, his spiritual adviser urged him to for- 
give from his heart all of his many enemies. 
'Father,* replied the dying man, 'I have not 
an enemy in the world.* 'Oh, my son!* said 
the good priest, 'you speak unadvisedly. No 
one could be so long in pubHc hfe as you have 
been without making enemies.* 'Undoubtedfy^,* 
answered the old Marshal, *I made a great 
many; but, so far as I know, I have had them 
all shot. I forgive them freely and cheerfully 
now.' Under the like conditions, I should ap- 
prove of similar magnanimity on our part as 
a nation." 

His subject in this address was "Why we are 
in the war and how we may win it,'* and on 
the second point he said: 

"We are in the war to win out, and until we 
win out, what must we do to assure our win- 



ATi'lTUDE IN THE WORLD WAR IM 

ning out, and, so Ikr as may be, to sfaorteii the 
prooeas? To this qnestion any number ci an- 
swen are daily shouted at us, but common 
sense and human eqierience reduce than to 
aae: we shall wm the war by hard, ^ective, 
and soccessfol fighting; we shall win it in that 
w^, and in no other way, if we win it at all; 
and we shaO advance the date of our final vic- 
toiy by aiq>loying the right mea to guide and 
lead in sw^ hard, effective and sufxes^ul fitt- 
ing and by giving those moi, as quickly *s POB- 
nble, all the troops, ghip w, arms, munitioDs and 
siq^lies idudi Vaey can use to advantage. Up 
to the presoit time we have fhme cme thmg, 
and one thing cmiy, cm a scale commensurate 
with the ^gantic task before us: we have ^lent 
public mmey as lavishly as could be asked by 
the most exartipg critic; but, in eveiy other 
reqtect, if a patriotic American is ccwtent with 
our achievements, he must be readily satisfied.** 

His views on President Wilson's League at 
Nati(»u were eqneased with his customary 
vigor and darity in an address heiore the Anm* 
deH Chib in Baltimore on December 20, 1910: 

"As to the League <d Nations for whidi |no- 
vinoo is made in the Treaty of Versailles I have 
a Toy clear and decided opinion, an opinion 
whidi I have deemed it my duty as a catucn 



200 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

tx) express publicly on all appropriate occasions. 
To my mind, its effects will be to give foreign 
powers an excuse for meddling in our business, 
to greatly increase for us the danger of friction, 
controversy, and war and, at the same time, 
to aid pacifists and other mischievous dreamers 
to mislead public opinion as to our need for 
preparedness in future, as tliey have misled it 
in the past at a cost to us of billions of money 
and tens of thousands of lives. Moreover, I 
can see in it no really effective saf^uard for 
peace; but, on the contrary, a tendency to make 
every war a world war by forbidding neutrality. 
Its mere suggestion has already threatened to 
make the affairs of Egj-pl, Korea, India, China, 
and especially Ireland, subject matter for parti- 
san exploitation in the manoeuvres of American 
politicians; and I, at least, see in this only harm 
and peril for us and harm and peril for all man- 
kind. 

"Such is my opinion, but were it my opinion 
only, it were hardly worthy to be weighed in a 
debate so momentous: it is, however, also the 
deliberate judgment of our best and ablest 
statesmen embodied in the time-hallowed policy 
of our Country and most forcibly expressed in 
the Farewell Address. Doubtless George Wash- 
ington knew much less than Henry Ford knows 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 201 

about making cheap automobiles or about mak- 
ing a vast fortime for himself out of their manu- 
facture. Moreover, his education may have 
been imperfect, according to our modem ideas, 
in other respects; he knew nothing about 
microbes and bacteria, about telephtmes and 
telegraphs, about aeroplanes and submarines, 
about raiboads and steiunships, even about 
National Prohibition and the Suffrage Amend- 
ment. But, like Themistocles, he did know 
how to make a small state a great one: he left 
us a policy which, under God's Providence, has 
changed our Nation from a fringe of sparsely 
settled colonies, dividing a wilderness from an 
oceauj into one of the greatest powers, in latent 
strength unquestionabfy the greatest power, of 
the civilized world; which has multiplied our 
population some forty fold and expanded our 
national wealth beyond the Hmits of trust- 
worthy computation during our one hundred 
and thirty years of life as a nation under our 
present Constitution; and, although he never 
fitted up a 'Peace Ship' or otherwise estabU^ed 
his fitness to have honor among the prophets 
and apostles of Peace in these happy days, his 
policy has availed to make more than nine- 
tenths of those hundred and thirty years, years 
of tranquil, prosperous, fruitful peace." 



202 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

Speaking on April Z9, 1920, before a cluster 
of the "Daughters of the American Revoluticm " 
on the subject of "Two Lessons of the Past 
Four Years," he said: 

"In the first place, we have had another 
illustration, and a very striking one, of the 
significant and well-established fact that, in 
our case at least, the most effective saf^uard 
of peace is thorough preparedness, both material 
and moral, for war. It may be a mere coinci- 
dence, but it may also be something more, and, 
m any event, it is certainly true, that we have 
never had a war with a civilized enen^ while 
our President was a soldier. Under Washingtcm 
and Jackson and Taylor and Grant our Country 
enjoyed all the blessings of peace at home and 
abroad; under John Adams, we had hostilities 
with France; under Thomas Jefferson, we had 
war with Tripoli; under James Madison, we 
had war with Great Britain. James K. Polk 
was our President when we drifted into war 
with Mexico; William McKiiUey, when we 
drifted into war with Spain; James Buchanan 
when we drifted into our own Civil War; Wood- 
row Wilson when we had war forced upon us 
three years ago. 

"To my mind, the second noteworthy lesson 
ai the past f oiur years is that the rulers of a 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 203 

great nation, like all other men in all other sta-i 
tions and callings, if they would escape disaster, 
must be guided in their policies, not by vain 
dreams, not by empty visions, conjured up 
tlu"ough wilful self-deception, but by the truth. 
Had William of HohenzoUern seen things as 
they were, and acted on what he thus saw, he 
would be today the powerful and prosperous 
Emperor of a powerful and prosperous empire. 
Had Nicholas of Russia and Francis Joseph of 
Austria seen things as they were, and prac- 
tically accepted what they knew in their hearts 
to be facts, Austria would be still a nation and 
Russia would not be a witches' cauldron of 
abominations and horrors. Had Great Britain 
heeded the wise counsel of Lord Roberts, had 
France always turned a perfectly deaf ear to 
the pernicious advice of her pacifists, had Bel- 
gian politicians lost less time in giving their 
country universal mihtary service, hundreds of 
thousands of lives had been spared and myriads 
of homes had escaped desolation. Finally, had 
our own government conunenced to place the 
nation in a state of defense in the Summer of 
1014, instead of in the Spring of 1917, and it 
was sheer wilful blindness which prevented 
this, we should have saved at least half of our 
present national debt, preserved for useful and 



S04 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

happy Hves many thousands of our best young 
men and spared mankind perhaps two years 
of the war*s agony." 

Among the later letters that he wrote were 
several to Mrs. David E. Wheeler, of Geneva, 
New York, a cousin of his wife. In one of them, 
under date of Decemb^ 0, 1918, he said of the 
League of Nations: 

"Stated briefly, I may say that I think a 
League of Nations, made up of those States 
and peoples which have taken part in the war 
and aided to bring it to a victorious conclusion, 
might be of some use, and, in time, develop into 
an agency of greater utility than at present, 
and, perhaps, aid materially in safeguarding 
the peace of the world. An attempt at the 
present time to organize a League, including, 
beside these nations, those who have sat still 
and looked on during the war, and even the 
vanquished enemies, would, in my opinion, be 
perfectly useless for all practical purposes, and, 
in fact, would virtually die in getting bom." 

In another, written about a year later, on 
December 19, 1919, he gave a quite remarkably 
accurate forecast of what occurred in the Re- 
publican National Convention of 1920: 

"The developments of politics are so far 
satisfactory that they tend greatly to confirm 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 205 

my already exalted opinion of my own wisdom 
and foresight, but otherwise I do not feel par- 
ticularly enthusiastic over them. The candi- 
dacy of General Wood is moving along precisely 
the lines that I expected. The Republican 
politicians who control the party machinery 
are either themselves largely interested in enter- 
prises dependent on legislation and adminis- 
trative favors for prosperity or else are employed 
by such enterprises, and both of these classes 
are intensely hostile to a man who is at once 
the intimate friend of Theodore Roosevelt and 
of exceptional independence and strength of 
character; therefore he will certainly be turned 
down as a candidate for the Presidency unless 
they are driven into nominating him by the 
utter impossibility of getting any other suit- 
able candidate. I can say nothing definite about 
the Maryland delegation : it will be nominated 
by unscrupulous politicians, and will have sub- 
stantially the same sentiments and wishes as 
the other statesmen who assemble at Chicago 
on the day before my next birthday; but it is 
quite possible that there may be suflBcient public 
sentiment aroused against their methods to 
ftightoi the local managers into an exhibition 
of decency and some regard for the people's 
will. One of the safety valves of our admirable 



a06 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

politica] ^stem is that our politicians are very 
cowardly, and timidity to smne extent takes 
the place of f»nsciaice with than." 

His keoi enjfqrmait in the humorous side of 
things was di^Iayed in a third letter to Mrs. 
Wheeler, on June 7, 1920. In it he related 
"some rather curious stories" that had come 
to him direct from a member of the family of 
<me of the official attendants at the Peace Con* 
fd^ncein Paris: 

"It seems that Mrs, X. could not get any 
hot water at the Hotel Crillon, and repeated 
ranonstrances were met with profuse expres- 
sions of regret and promises of immediate at- 
trition, but no improvement in the situation; 
finally she made herself so disagreeable to the 
management, that they did send the plumber 
up, who told her that the real difficulty had 
been that 'Madame 'Ouse' had complained of 
the insufficiency of hot water, and had it cut 
off &om all the rest of the hotel for her benefit. 
It seems also that on the return of this distin- 
guished party from the Conference during which 
they were fellow passengers with His Majesty 
and the leading courtiers, the weather was very 
mild and pleasant, and some of the ladies wanted 
the Captain to stop the ship and allow them to 
take a salt water bath in the ocean. This the 
Captain did not see in the same hght; and th^ 



ATTITUDE IN THE WORLD WAR 207 

asked that other great man, Mr. Barney Baruch, 
to use his 'inflooence' to secure the privilege. 
Barney, however, hesitated, and was thereupon 
asked by one of them if he was afraid to bathe 
by reason of the sharks, and replied: 'Oh, no, 
he was not afraid of the sharks, — he was one 
himself.' 

"I asked B. if she had any inside information 
as to the causes of ' such anger in celestial minds ' 
as has caused the estrangement between His 
Majesty and Col. 'Ouse.' She said that her 
brother thought it was undoubtedly a disagree- 
ment between these great men on the subject 
of Fiume. I think that one of these days the 
history of this Dalmatian City during the last 
eighteen months or thereabouts will probably fur- 
nish the theme for an opera bouffe quite equal to 
those that were in vogue in Paris fifty years ago." 

I am indebted to Walter H. Buck, Esq., of 
Baltimore for the following entertaining analy- 
sis of the mental and other pecuharities of the 
famous Adams family which Bonaparte made in 
a letter to him under date of September 26, 1919: 

"I have not read the 'Education of Henry 
Adams,* although I have read a number of re- 
views of it and have seen a great many extracts. 
I was personally acquainted with him, and bet- 
ter acquainted with his brother, Charles Francis 
Adams, whose 'Autobiography' I have read. 



208 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAKTE 

The family had very marked peculiarities, and 
especially an abnormal disposition to depre- 
cate everybody, including themselves, and to 
display themselves to the public in a less favor- 
able light than would have been fair to them 
or in accordance with truth. In the case of 
Charles Francis Adams, this was notably shown 
by his observation that his class at Harvard 
was only remarkable for containing two per- 
sons who were sent to the Penitentiary. As a 
matter of fact, I heard from one of his class- 
mates that he was very much interested in the 
class and quite generous in contributions for 
reunions and amusements intended to keep 
alive class-feeling, Henry Adams was an even 
more peculiar man than Charles Francis, and 
from what I know of the family, I would take 
everything he said subject to rather serious dis- 
count, especially when it related to himself, 
his relatives, or his intimate friends. The 
Adams attitude of mind toward the world 
seems to have been one of smothered indigna- 
tion that they were not better appreciated by 
the public, leading them to 'run down' their 
own merits and those of everybody else with 
whom they were brought in contact. For all 
these reasons I have not felt any great desire 
to read the 'Education of Henry Adams."' 



CHAPTER XIX 

MARRUGE — CITY AND COUNTRY 
HOUSES 

WHILE he was a student in Harvard 
in 1871 Bonaparte met Miss Ellen 
Channing Day, of Hartford, Conn., 
who was on a visit to friends in Cambridge. 
She was the daughter of Thomas Mills Day, a 
member of one of the most distinguished fam- 
iUes of Connecticut. His father, Thomas D^, 
was a brother of Jeremiah Day, President of 
Yale University from 1817 to 1846. Thomas 
Day was an eminent jurist who for several 
years was associate judge of the County Court 
of Hartford and for six years its chief judge. 
He was the author of many law-books and the 
editor of forty volumes of English law works. 
He was also one of the founders of the Connect- 
icut Historical Society and for many years its 
President. His son, Thomas Mills Day, the 
father of Mrs. Bonaparte, was a graduate of 
Yale in the class of 1837, and was for a time 
a practising lawyer. Later he purchased the 
Hartford Courant of which he was editor as 



210 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

well as proprietor from 1855 to 1866, when he 
sold the newspaper and retired from active Hfe. 
Bonaparte made the acquaintance of Miss 
Day at the Saturday gatherings of a class of 
about twenty young people of both sexes in 
Cambridge which had been formed for purposes 
of amusement. Previous to these gatherings 
Bonaparte had paid Uttle or no heed to young 
ladies and had shunned parties and balls as 
offering no attraction to him. It was noticed 
that the blond young lady from Hartford had 
from the first encounter caused him to "take 
notice." In the game of baseball, which was 
played with flat bats and a soft ball, Bonaparte, 
whose position was in the field, was accused of 
"fielding too near the third base" at which 
Miss Day was stationed, and of appointing 
himself her escort to and from the gymnasium. 
He was at that time a very serious young man 
with a heavy black beard and with the general 
appearance of a professor rather than of a stu- 
dent. When Miss Day told her mother that 
she had met at the gymnasium "a tall, broad- 
shouldered, slender yotmg man named Bona- 
parte," Mrs. Day, who curiously enough as a 
young lady had been a visitor to West Point 
in 1852, when Charles J. Bonaparte, as de- 
scribed in a previous chapter, was present in 



MARRIAGE 211 

his nurse's arms to witness his brother Jerome's 
graduation, exclaimed: "Why, he must be the 
baby I saw at West Point. I had a room nest 
to the Bonaparte family and I heard the mother 
say: 'Jerome, Charles Joseph is crying; can't 
you take him up ? ' " 

Miss Day's first sight of her future husband 
really dated back to her eighth year, when she 
visited her mother's aunt, Mrs. John Paine, at 
her lovely home, "Sea Verge," on Bellevue 
Avenue, Newport, and was shown, among the 
distinguished persons on that famous avenue, a 
foragn-looking gentleman on horseback, with 
his small son beside him on a pony. This was 
Charles Joseph Bonaparte, with his father. 
Neither the boy nor the fair-haired little girl 
who was looking at him dreamed that on Sep- 
tember 1, 1875, .they would be married in liiat 
same house. 

If fate was thus conspiring to bring the two 
together, at this early date, there was one other 
happaiing which might possibly be interpreted 
as revealing similar activity. In the winter fol- 
lowing their first meeting, Mrs. Day planned to 
spend several months with her daughter in Chi- 
cago and they were actually in the city when 
the great fire of October, 1871, burned them out 
and compelled th^ return to the East. It was 



212 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

a curious but not inexplicable coincidence that 
Bonaparte was on his way to Chicago in re- 
sponse to a sudden desire to see something of 
the West, when the fire compelled his return 
also. Mrs. Day and her daughter spent the 
winter in Boston and Bonaparte became a fre- 
quent visitor in their household. Yet while 
the mutual attraction of the two young persons 
was generally recognized, and Bonaparte's com- 
panions spoke of Miss Day as his "diurnal," 
there was no formal engagement between them 
when in 1872 Mrs. Day took her daughter to 
Europe for three years. Letters were quite fre- 
quently exchanged and on the return of mother 
and daughter in June, 1875, an engagement was 
announced and they were married on Septem- 
ber 1 at "Sea Verge," the residence of the 
bride's aunt, in Newport, Rhode Island, by 
Bishop Hendricks, Catholic bishop of the 
State. 

After a brief honeymoon trip which Bona- 
parte cut short in order to return to Baltimore 
and attend to a law case, the young couple 
went to live for a few weeks with his mother 
in the Bonaparte house in Baltimore which his 
father had built, while their country house, 
called "Chestnut Wood," was being made ready 
for them. This was situated about four miles 



MARRIAGE 913 

oat <^ the city and was occupied by them for 
sereral years. 

Madame Patterson-Bonaparte, who had re- 
sented bitterly the marriage of Charles's brother 
Jerome to an American, made no objection to 
the marriage of Charles and cordially welcomed 
his wife to the famify circle, expressing a genuine 
liking for her at their first meeting. She had 
been so incensed with Jerome that she had told 
Charles that she intended to leave all her money 
to him, cutting Jerome completely out of her 
will. She abandoned this purpose when Charles 
told her that it would make no di£Ference what 
she did, since he should divide equally with 
Jerome in any event. She accordingly divided 
her property equally between them. 

The Bonaparte house to which Charles took 
his wife for temporary residence, and which is 
still standing at the comer of Park Avenue and 
Center Street, was in its day one of the finest 
in the city. It is a lai^e five-stoiy building, in 
the first or basement story of which Bonaparte 
fitted up later a law office. Its interior was 
admirably arranged for social purposes with 
an imposing entrance-hall and capacious and 
statety drawing and dining rooms. A room 
on the second floor was set apart for a large 
and valuable collection of Napoleonic relics 



2U CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

which had been assembled by Charles's father. 
This is now in the possession of the Maryland 
Historical Society to which it was presented by 
Charles's widow. It comprises several hundred 
numbers, including many busts, portraits, mini- 
atures, rare pieces of china, and some very 
handsome cabinets, wardrobes, and other rare 
articles of furniture. Charles added little to 
it, for he took slight interest in Napoleonana, 
and refused to purchase any samples of it. 

The most notable article in the collection is 
the remarkably fine marble bust of NapolefMi I 
as General, when he was twenty-seven years of 
age, a photograph of which is shown facing page 
216. This was modelled originally in Egypt, in 
plaster, by Charles-Louis Corbet, and subse- 
quently cut in marble by Henri-Fr6d6ric Iselin, 
in Paris in 1859, on the order of Jwome Napo- 
leon Bonaparte, father of Charles. A replica was 
made for Napoleon IH, and is in the museum 
at Ajaccio. 

Two other interesting busts are those of the 
father and mother of Napoleon I. That of the 
mother, Madame M^re, is by Canova, and is 
the head of a full-length statue of her by him; 
that of the father. Carlo Bonaparte, is supposed 
to have been made in Canova's studio. They 
w^re presented to Charles's mother, by Joseph 



MARRIAGE 215 

Bonaparte, Napoleon's eldest brother, and were 
taken from his famous Bordentown collection. 

There are several portraits of Elizabeth Pat- 
terson Bonaparte, including one in a white 
empire gown, when she was thirty-two, by 
Kinson, and another, which was her favorite, 
at the age of forty, painted in Geneva, by Mas- 
sot, on the panel of an old stage-coach. There 
is also a daguerreotype copy of Gilbert Stuart's 
portrait of her, with three heads on one can- 
vas, showing her face from three angles, his 
explanation being that as he was quite unable 
to say from which point of view she was most 
beautiful he gave them all. 

For several years after his marriage Bona- 
parte continued to reside at Chestnut Wood, 
but when the city spread in that direction bring- 
ing trolley-cars and close neighbors, like Daniel 
Boone when neighbors crowded upon him, he 
"moved farther into the wilderness." He found 
a site for a new country retreat at a point four- 
teen miles from Baltimore, on the Harford 
Road. There was situated there an old house, 
known as the Gittings Homestead, which was 
over one himdred years old, and which in its 
time had been one of the notable structures in 
that part of the country. The hand carving on 
its woodwork was quite famous. It was situated 



816 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

in a valley which made its name of "Bella 
Vista" something of a misnomer. Bonaparte 
chose for the site of his house a high hill, above 
the Gittlngs house, retaining the latter as the 
dwelling of the overseer of his estate. Upon 
this hill, overlooking the surrounding country 
for miles in all directions, he built, in the early 
nineties a mansion to which he gave, somewhat 
reluctantly, the old name of "Bella Vista," for 
while the location made the name appropriate 
he would have preferred one in the English 
language. This new home was literally the 
joy of his heart, and in it he spent many of the 
happiest hours of his life. 

The building, which has two clearstories and 
a deep roof with dormer-windows, is in modern- 
ized Colonial style with a deep wide veranda 
running nearly all around it. Sitting on the 
veranda Bonaparte could see his entire estate 
of about three hundred acres spread out in the 
valley beneath. At the foot of the hill on one 
side, were his carriage and stable buildings, 
and, on another side, the Gittings house with 
its cluster of farm buildings. Stretching 
straightaway for several miles lies the road to 
Baltimore over which he drove to and fro each 
day. The house is a veritable landmark, being 
visible for many miles from all points in the 



■ 


^ "* 


■ 






i 


1 


DUST OF NAPOLEON I. AS GENERAL, WHEN HE WAS *T YEARS OF AtiE 
H«1e!I(d in piMler in Ectpl by CliBrlw-Loui. Corbrt: cut in in.rblc In Piris !d 18M, by 
hibilwJ at tlie Salon, 18P0. Thm ij u plMlfrct uF it in Ih* Mastr nt VL'nsillM.ii muhle 
^Uldinbucgh, 



MARRIAGE 



217 



' surrounding country, which is interspersed with 
hills and is of great natural beauty. 

The interior of the house is as attractive as 
the exterior. A wide hall, fifty-three feet in 

I length, runs through it from north to south. 
On one side is a dining-room and on the other 
a library, and adjoining is the private office in 
which Bonaparte worked both while he was a 
practising lawyer and while he was a member 
of Roosevelt's Cabinet, for his week-ends and 

I his holidays were always spent here. In fact, 

' his daily rides to Baltimore should also be in- 
cluded in his working hours, for during these 
his always active mind was so intensely at work 
that he scarcely recognized persons who passed 
him on the road. Yet preoccupied as he was 
he never failed to lift his hat, with his unfailing 

I courtesy, to every person whom he met. 

In the stables were always twelve driving 

I horses and many carriages of different forms. 

I Eveiy day, through fair or foul weather, it was 

I Bonaparte's custom to be driven to the city 
behind a steady-trotting pair of horses, capa- 
ble of making a speed up-hill or down of five 
miles an hour, covering the distance either way 

I in about an hour and a half. Only till liis health 
failed shortly before he died would he consent 
to use an automobile. He loved horses and 



218 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

enjoyed their companionship. "You can't get 
any pleasure in looking at an automobile," he 
said when automobiles came into general use, 
"but I can sit and look at a horse for hours 
with pleasure." 

His love for horses dated from his earliest 
years. His letters to his father in his childhood 
school days were full of references to them, and 
in one which he wrote to his mother while a 
student at Harvard, in describing an epidemic 
among horses in Boston, he said: 

"Perhaps, after all, good will be blown to 
the community generally by this very ill wind, 
as it may induce people to treat horses in future 
with a little more humanity, and even to pay 
some small attention to the rules of health and 
common sense in conducting their stables. We 
ought, also, to have some Real veterinary 
surgeons, and I do not see why men of educa- 
tion and capacity should not find in that branch 
of medicine, both a lucrative and an interesting 
profession. If I were a physician, I should 
certainly prefer alleviating the sufferings of an 
animal whose diseases are in nine cases out of 
ten the results of human brutality, than of a 
man whose maladies are produced almost in- 
variably by his own vice or folly." 



MARRIAGE 319 

The stables at Bella Vista were designed by 
Bonaparte and were models of their kind, with 
all the latest developments in that variety of 
construction. He was greatly attached to his 
horses, was always unwilling to sell one, and 
always kept them, long after their usefulness 
had ended, insisting that they be well cared for 
in old age. When they became so helpless that 
they could barely move about, he would only 
consent to their being shot when he was assured 
that they no longer "enjoyed life." 

Regularly each year, on May 1, he went to 
Bella Vista, remaining there till the middle of 
July, whea, on accomit of the severe strain that 
the heat of midsummer was upon his wife's 
health, he went with her to St. Andrews, New 
Bnmswick, on Passamaquoddy Bay, for two 
months. Returning to Bella Vista he remained 
there till December 1. He greatly enjoyed these 
annual vists to Canada, and found them bene- 
ficial to his health which on accowit of a chronic 
weakness of heart was not robust. Indeed, in 
1888 he was threatened with a nervous break- 
down from overwork and was ordered by his 
physicians to take a sea-voyage. Instead of 
going to Europe as they advised, he went to 
Alaska, saying he preferred seemg his own coun- 



220 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

try rather than a foreign one. He was accom- 
panied by his wife and mother-in-law and a 
niece of the latter. Miss Mabel Whitney. The 
three weeks' voyage by steamer from Tacoma 
to Sitka and return greatly benefited him, as 
did the cold bracing air of the country, which 
was a genuine tonic for all members of the party. 
In 1918 he began to show signs of failing 
health and from that time he sank gradually 
to his death. He made his last visit to Canada 
in 1920 and returned seemingly benefited by 
it, but his first attempt to resume work by going 
to the court-house showed that the improve- 
ment was only temporary. In the spring of 
1921 he went to Bella Vista In April, confident 
that in that loved retreat he would find renewed 
health and strength, and he was greatly disap- 
pointed when he failed to improve. His con- 
dition became so serious that his physicians 
abandoned all hope of his recovery. His only 
pleasure was in driving, and this he continued 
daily till within four days of his death. During 
his last days he sat in a reclining chair, his atti- 
tude and features bearing a striking resemblance 
to the famous statue of Napoleon's last days at 
St. Helena, the original of which is at Versailles 
and a replica of which is in the Corcoran Gal- 
lery at Washington. A small plaster replica is 



MARRIAGE 221 

in the Bonaparte collection in the Maryland 
Historical Society. He died peacefully and un- 
conscious at four o'clock on the morning of June 
28. 1921. 



CHAPTER XX 
PERSONALITY 

JOHN HAY, who in addition to being a 
scholar, a: poet, and a statesman was also 
a philosopher, wrote this couplet: 

" Be not anxious to g^n your next-door ndghbor's 
approval: 

Live your own Iife> and let him strive your ap- 
proval to gain." 

No man ever lived his own life more thor- 
oughly than did Charles J. Bonaparte. In a 
literal sense in his case the child was father of 
the man. As a solitary child he had never been 
lonety, but had found within himself inexhaust- 
ible resources of occupation and amusement. 
He grew to manhood trained to this self-reliance 
and accustomed to finding in it his greatest 
happiness. He also found in it his sole guide 
to conduct. Neither the approval nor the opin- 
ions of his neighbors gave him concern. What 
his mind and conscience told him he should do, 
that he did, and to the consequences of his 
words or acts he gave no thought at all. 

"To thine own self be true; 
And it must follow, as the night the day. 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 



PERSONALITY 223 

No impartial reader of the preceding pages, 
and no one who is famihar with Bonaparte's 
career can doubt for a moment that this was 
the guide which he followed inflexibly through- 
out his career. His contemporaries in Baltimore 
unite in saying that his devotion to what he 
believed to be right was so absolute that he 
would have gone to the stake cheerfully in de- 
[ fense of his principles. Defeat never diseour- 
! aged him, ridicule and abuse only amused him, 
and knowledge of his own unpopularity caused 
him not a moment's uneasiness. He was abso- 
I lutely fearless and absolutely beyond the reach 
■ of personal gain or emolument of any kind. 
In an address which he delivered on June 19, 
1902, at the unveiling of a monument to Severn 
Teackle Wallis, who had been his zealous and 
powerful associate in his long battle for honest 
methods in Maryland pohties, Bonaparte at- 
tributed to Mr. Wallis qualities which might 
with equal truth be ascribed to himself. Speak- 
ing of the high place that Mr. WalUs held in 
the estimation of the people, he said: 

"This unsought homage to his rectitude and 
strength was as far apart as are the two poles 
from that popularity of a day for which pubhc 
men in our time and country too often barter 
their self-respect, drug their consciences, hide. 



224 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

stifle or distort their beliefs and their sentiments. 
It may be doubted whether, in this ignoble sense 
of the word, in its sordid meaning to the dema- 
gogue or the time-server, Mr. Walhs, during all 
the many years of his honored life, could be 
fairly called a 'popular' man; certainly he never 
sought to be such. A man of strong convictions, 
always earnest and outspoken as to his opinions, 
a disputant ' who shunned no question and who 
wore no mask,' endowed, moreover, by nature 
with a dangerous gift of invective and sarcasm 
which made him remembered when stupidly 
harmless adversaries were pardoned in forget- 
fulness, he was called to take part, and a part 
of great moment, in public controversies of far- 
reaching consequence to our City and State 
and Nation, controversies which deeply affected 
individual interests, awakened angry passions, 
and bore fruit in bitter and lasting enmities." 

Yet while Bonaparte had not won the title 
of "popular man," his long and valiant fight 
for honesty and plain morality in public life 
and conduct had won for him in the closing 
years of his life the position of recognized leader 
of the intelligent and respectable sentiment of 
the State. He had the popular confidence, for 
the people had faith in his sincerity and high 
principle. They knew he was honest and fear- 



PERSONALITY SS5 

less and there was no other pubKc speaker to 
whom they flocked more eagerly to hear or to 
be guided by. 

His personal idiosyncrasies were very marked. 
He walked with a long swinging stride, swerving 
from one part of the sidewalk to the other, tap- 
ping with his cane every post or door-step that 
he passed, and moving his head from side to 
side in time with his steps. So occupied was he 
with his own thoughts that he would look mti- 
mate friends in the face without a sign of recog- 
nition. He was, in fact, as alone in the world 
as if he had been in a wUdemess, alone with 
his own mind, watchiug the play of it with an 
intentness that was all-absorbing. This was a 
part of the isolation of his Bfe. He was alone 
in his own company as completely as if he were 
still the chUd in the nursery. His enjoyment of 
his own thought and of his own humor was the 
direct outcome of his isolation. His whimsical 
smile was the outward and visible sign of in- 
ward joy. Walking or riding, his alert and well- 
stored mind was always working and always 
commandiag his entire attention. It was at 
once his chief occupation and chief enjoyment. 
It was said of him that he had friends but no 
intimates. His one intimate fiiend was Samuel 
Brearl^, a founder of the Brearley School in 



2jee CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

New Yarkt whose death in 1886 was a great 
grief to him. After Brearley's death he was him- 
self his only intimate, with the exception of his 
wife. She, hke him, cared Httle for social life, 
though he keenly enjoyed giving dinner parties 
in his own house, saying he would hke to give 
one a week. He was a delightful host and most 
interesting talker at these gatherings. He loved 
his home, his devotion to his wife was said by 
those who knew him best to amount to adora- 
tion, and his favorite evening occupation was 
sitting with her and reading aloud. 

On the streets of Baltimore in his time there 
were two familiar figures that were universally 
recognized — those of Cardinal Gibbons and 
Bonaparte, whose peculiar walk distinguished 
him. The carriage in which he and Mrs. Bona- 
parte rode about the city was also an object 
of curiosity and attraction. It was a handsome 
old victoria drawn by two fine chestnut horses, 
with two colored men on the box, a coachman 
and a footman, in a modest liveiy, much modi- 
fied from the Bonapartist one that his father had 
used. It was black, with the edges of the coats 
piped i^ red, and high silk hats with simple 
gold bands. On one occasion when Bonaparte, 
wearing a cape, was passing from his house to 
the carriage, a street urchin said to his com- 



PEKSONALITY ««7 

panion: "There goes Mr. Napoleon Bona- 
parte." 

He never visited France or Europe. When 
he was asked while he was in Roosevelt's Cabi- 
net why he had never gone abroad he replied: 
"It is true that I have never visited Europe. 
I expected to do so immediately alter leaving 
college, but circumstances prevented my going 
at that time, and I have never foxmd any leisure 
since." It was said that one reason why he 
did not wish to go was his dislike of fuss of any 
kind, and that he shrank from the notoriety 
which his name and position in America might 
bring to him. During the World War he was 
greatly amused by a statement in a newspaper 
that he "must be a pro-German because his 
grandfather was King of Westphalia." 

No man was ever more respected and beloved 
by the members of his official and domestic 
households than was Bonaparte. Th^ grew 
old in his service, for he rarely changed them 
when they had once been retained. His secre- 
tary, Mr. Cleveland P. Manning, served him in 
that capacity for forty-two years, the entire 
period of his active life, from the time he began 
the practice of the law till his death. Miss 
Harriet Gries was his stenographer for nearly 
thirty years. Mr. Manning, whose devotion to 



228 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 1 

his interests was equalled only by his affection 
for him, said of him to me: "I never had a 
cross word or a misunderstanding with him," 

Miss Gries's testimony is more full and gives 
us a charming picture of the gentle, lovable 
personahty of the man as he revealed himself 
in the frank intimacy of home fife. It is in the 
form of a letter that she wrote a few days after 
Bonaparte's death to Camillus G. Kidder, of 
New York, who had been a valued and trusted 
friend of Bonaparte since the two men had 
beai college mates at Harvard: 

"Four years ago we moved the office up here, 
using a part of the residence. Mr. Bonaparte 
had received a good offer for the office building 
on St. Paul Street, and, of course, sold it. The 
house here lent itself very well to the change. 
On the ground floor is a suite of rooms facing 
on Center Street (the front of the house is on 
Park Avenue), and these rooms Mr. Bonaparte 
remodelled and fitted up for our use. We came 
up four years ago on July 1st. The comer room 
was formerly the library of the house, and was 
used as Mr. Bonaparte's private office; then 
there is a httle triangular vestibule; the next 
room, formerly the housekeeper's sitting room, 
is the general office; the next, formerly her 
bedroom is now my office; the door now used. 



I 



PERSONALITY 229 

which opens on Center Street, had been closed 
for years. All of the windows have iron bars; 
there is plenty of hght and sunshine, a bit of 
green out of the back window, and trees and a 
garden wall with green things tumbling over it 
opposite, — so they are very attractive offices, 
quaintly charming. I wish you could have seen 
them in his day, for he was the gem in the set- 
ting; always immaculately groomed, with his 
gracious dignity, beautiful courtesy, his kindly 
smile, and the re-assuring calm of his bright 
quiet eyes, — a precious old man, at seventy 
looking about fifty. 

"I do not recall just when his first attack 
came, but I do remember that he was unable 
to go to Mr. Roosevelt's funeral, whose death 
grieved him very much. Soon after this Mr. 
Bonaparte began to fail. He had mild heart 
attacks, which, however, weakened him; they 
came with irregular frequency. It was hoped 
when he got to Bella Vista, his country place, 
he would get better, but in July of last year he 
had a very serious attack and came near slipping 
away then. The Doctor had to be called in the 
night from town. It so happened that they got 
hold of the right chauffeur with his taxi who 
knew the way out, and the fifteen miles were 
made in record time. But, when the Doctor ar- 



230 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

rived, complications, of which he knew noth- 
ing, had set in, and he did not have the right 
medicine. The Doctor in the neighborhood, 
who had also been called, happened to have 
some of the right medicine, and after two more 
journeys of about two miles and a search in 
various places, the right medicine was found, 
left over, accidentally, from the Flu Epidemic 
time. All this time Mr. Bonaparte was gasping 
for breath, and almost gasped his last. Three 
drops of the medicine caused functioning, which 
enabled him to hold on for nearly a year longer. 
He went to Canada, as usual, being taken to the 
train in an invalid chair (to avoid steps more 
than anything else), and was well taken care of 
by all those around him. He returned hopefully 
and seemingly better, and all of last Fall spent 
most of his time at Bella Vista. 

"After coming to the City for the Winter, 
he began to pick up the work which had accu- 
mulated awaiting his return to a normal work 
day, but his first trip to the Court House 
brought him down again, and, after that, he 
was not allowed to walk, and his office hours 
were shortened to half a day and aU other work 
given up entirely. He drove twice a day for 
fresh air and exercise, and looked forward to 
going to Bella Vista this Spring with some hope 



PERSONALITY 881 

of entire recovery. But, alas ! he did not gain 
any, and when he began to get impatient and 
restless over his deferred recovery, he had to 
be told of his serious condition. Dear Mrs. 
Bonaparte was told some time in the Winter 
that he could not recover. But, in spite of this, 
we all hoped he had at least a few more years 
before him. He had lived such a careful life 
and was so well taken care of during all this 
time, having everything that aflfection, skill and 
science could supply. 

"The last weeks of his life he became even 
more dependent on Mrs. Bonaparte, and she 
gave herself to his needs and care. I love to 
tell of the beautiful life of these two, — how 
they always sat holding hands, after forty-five 
years of companionship ! how he bade her good 
night, putting his arms around her, kissing her, 
and saying: 'Good night, my dear Cosset, be 
a good Kttle Cosset.' Think of the loyalty of 
these two hearts in these days of variable con- 
stancy ! 

"The fimeral was unique and picturesque: 
the High Mass dignified, beautiful, solenm, was 
hard on those of us whose heart strings were 
played on by strong emotions. The pathetic 
little figure of the woman whose man had been 
taken seemed to have shrivelled and bent under 



232 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

the woe of it. Mr. Jerome Bonaparte, the 
nephew, was with her, and the three nurses 
who had been of the household during his ill- 
ness; and then, the servants, — several pews 
full of colored servants. He was buried from 
the Cathedral. The Navy was represented, 
flags were at half mast on U. S. Government 
ships all over the world and the City Hall here; 
the local Courts and societies were represented, 
of course, and when the body was taken out 
the bells of the Cathedral were tolled as they 
only are at the funeral of a trustee of the Cathe- 
dral — and then we put him in his final resting 
place, and the httle lady went home ! How I 
have loved her during these days of her sorrow ! 

"In his address the Priest said Mr. Bona- 
parte had three characteristics which stood out 
strongly: he was an educated gentleman; he 
was a patriot, and he was a child of the ancient 
church. Of the three great men who had passed 
out of our midst in the last three months, he 
could say of Mr. Bonaparte what he could not 
say of the others; the Cardinal, was eminent 
for his clerical virtues; Chief Justice White, 
eminent for his judicial virtues, but Mr, Bona- 
parte was pre-eminent as the man of the fire- 
side and the ideal home life. 

" Our office family consisted of Mr. Manning, 



I 



PERSONALITY 233 

Mr. B's secretary, who has been with him for 
42 years, his (Mr. Manning's) secretary, Mr. 
Bonaparte and myself, who have been his 
stenographer for nearly thirty years. My start- 
ing equipment was very meager, so my lines have 
fallen in pleasant places, for it has been an edu- 
cation as well as a rare privilege to have served 
him all these years, and I would wish for noth- 
ing better in the next world than to serve him 
again." 

The servants in Mr. Bonaparte's household 
were no less devotedly attached to him than 
were the members of his office staff. Most of 
them were continually In his service for many 
years, and all spoke of him habitually with 
affection and reverence. It was said by Doc- 
tor Johnson, in speaking of the merits and de- 
fects of biographers : 

"Biographers so little regard the manners or 
behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge 
may be gained of a man's real character by a 
short conversation with one of his servants 
than from a formal and studied narrative, begun 
with his pedigree, and ended with his fuijeral." 

Mindful of this dictum I paid a visit in Balti- 
more, during the preparation of this work, to 
the ex-slave, Nathan Briscoe, then eighty-three 
years of age, who, after obtaining freedom. 



ie34 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

served Mr. Bonaparte for twenty years as head 
butler. The old man, who was quite feeble, 
greeted me with joy when I told him of my 
errand, and exclaimed (I shall not attempt to 
reproduce the dialect) : 

"Yes, sir: I sure will be glad to talk of 
Mr. Bonaparte. There was no other man in the 
United States like him ! He was the best man 
in the whole world ! When I went with him as 
head butler I was told he was very particular 
about his breakfast — wanted it just so. I 
had one of the servants tell me how he wanted 
it, and first time I served it to him I was terribly 
afraid I would not suit him. He said nothing and 
I was afraid I had not done right. I heard him 
laughing to himself, chuckling as he went away, 
and I didq't know what that meant. When 
I told the other servant that he went away 
laughing, he said: *Did he laugh? Then you 
are all right — he was suited, for he always 
laug^ when he is suited.* 

" I never saw him angiy but once. He wanted 
to take a train to town one morning. He was 
then at Bella Vista, and the carriage didn't 
come in time because some of the harness for 
the hojses had been put on another pair that 
had gone away and had not got back. He 
missed his train and went upstairs very angry. 



PERSONALITY 



Pretty i 



he ( 



; down J 



235 
I and said to 



■ soon 

the coachman; 'Alex, I was quite angry, but 
you were right and I was wrong.' He always 
carried his lunch to town in a silver box — two 
sandwiches. I always put it up. 

"He was always good to the servants. Once 
he gave them a great party on Alex's birthday. 
The servants had been to parties given by the 
servants of other famiUes. Alex wanted to give 
one big party to all of them and pay the ex- 
pense. Mr. Bonaparte he said no, he would 
pay all the expense. He had all the carriages 
taken out the carriage house, had the room 
decorated, and invited all the servants from 
other places. There were many carriage loads 
of them, all colored people. Mr, Bonaparte 
held a reception down in the stable, and there 
was a band of music and supper, and everybody 
had a grand time. Madame Bonaparte said 
she would like to see a cake walk, and we fixed 
up one. She and her guests came down to the 
stable to see it and were just tickled to death. 

"Always on Fourth of July and Thanksgiving 
I had to go to town from Bella Vista to carve 
the roast pig. Nobody else allowed to do that. 
The last time I went Mr. Bonaparte said: 
'Nathan, we're getting old. Nobody cares for 
us.' Madame Bonaparte, she say: 'Yes, some- 



286 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

body does. Nathan does and you care for 
him/ 

"I couldn't help shedding tears when he died. 
There was no such man in the world. I miss 
him today> and maybe he miss me too!" 



CHAPTER XXI 
RELIGION 

IN religion Bonaparte was a devout and 
liberal Catholic. From his childhood he 
was associated with that faith, for he was 
instructed by Catholics, both as teachers and 
tutors, though his mother was a Protestant, a 
member of the Presbyterian Church. She never 
interfered with his religious instruction, leaving 
that entirely to his father. His loyalty to his 
Church never faltered. He was loyal to his 
Church, as he was to all his ideals, because loy- 
alty was a supreme quality in his nature, and 
he insisted upon loyalty on the part of all of 
its members. A good Catholic cannot be a bad 
citizen — this was the basis of all his addresses 
to Catholic societies and members. He made 
many of these, which were carefully prepared 
and have been preserved. Brief extracts from 
some of them will serve to show how thoroughly 
he carried his religious convictions into his daily 
Ufe. 

In an address of welcome which he made to 
the prelates of the Third Plenary Council which 
met in Baltimore in 1884, he sud: 



238 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

"The creed of the Catholic Church is founded 
on no theory in physics or psychology, and she 
makes no treaty with such theories; she teaches 
not what she thinks from reasoning, but what 
she knows from an ever-present, unceasing reve- ■ 
lation. With her facts, hypotheses, however I 
plausible or ingenious, must square themselves ] 
as best they may; it is not her business to point 
out their inconsistencies or to correct their 
errors. She does not so much condemn them 
as disregard them: she beheves, not indeed 
because, but although what she beheves may be, 
humanly speaking, impossible. And she has no 
fear of the future; as all the speculations of 
idealist metaphysicians have never made one 
man doubt for one moment the reality of his 
own existence or that of the visible universe, 
so no proof, however conclusive in seeming, that 
our spiritual life is a dream, eternity a blank, 
the gospel a myth or a forgery, can touch her, 
who lives and breathes and has her being in 
the reality and truth of all these things. Sure 
of her mission, she shrinks from none of its re- 
sponsibihties. Her religion is no abstraction; 
it is a practical rule of life. She is not content 
with a passive assent to her claims; her children 
must heed her voice and do her work at all times 
and in all places; on the days of labor as on the 



RELIGION 239 

day of rest, by the family hearth, in the fonim, 
in the murt no less than vithin the temple and 
before the altar. Every act or thought, however 
mute or private, is subjected to her scrutiny and 
may merit her rebuke. She would not merely 
invite, but compel, men to do ri^t; and what 
is ri^t she always knows and is always ready 
to say." 

In an address b^ore the Young Men's Catho- 
lic Association of Boston College in 1801, on 
the subject of "The Catholic Church and Its 
Relations to American Institutions," he said: 

"It is an idea essentially pagan that in any 
sphere of thought or action a man can escape 
from his conscience; that for any purpose (v 
under any circumstances he can cease to know 
right from wrong and to be bound by his knowl- 
edge. But I know of no moral teacher, heathen 
or Christian, of any age or school who questions 
that the happiness of a republic depends on the 
virtue of its citizens; that the suffrage is not 
a privilege to be abdicated or bartered away, 
but a trust to be sacredly fulfilled, that no man 
has a right to give his conscience into the keep- 
ing of any party or faction or to surrender him- 
self for a season to the promptings of blind 
prejudice or selfish greed, or that hypocri^ 
and calumny and falsehood in eveiy shape are 



240 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

no less mean and hateful during a political cam- 
paign than before or after it. Macaulay claimed 
that to say of Charles I, 'he was a good man but 
a bad king,* involved a contradiction in terms; 
no one could be the second while he remained 
the first. Macaulay was not a Catholic, yet 
his view has been in all ages that of the Church. 
She does not meddle with the things of Csesar; 
but honor and truth, good faith and public 
spirit, loyalty to our rulers, candor and charity 
to our fellow men — these things are not the 
things of Csesar, they are hers, and she will 
have them of all that own her name; no Amer- 
ican can be at once a good Catholic and a bad 
citizen." 

Speaking before the Young Catholic's Friend 
Society of Baltimore in 1892 on "The Province 
of Laymen in the Catholic Church," he said: 

"For the Church every baptized man is a 
CathoHc; no doubt he may be a bad as well 
as a good Catholic, a rebellious no less than a 
loyal son of the Church, a useless and harmful 
just as he may be a useful member of the Chris- 
tian body; but whether he wishes it or not, 
whether he deserves it or not, he belongs to 
the Churdi. And he belongs to her body and 
soul; he cannot justly refuse her anything which 
he has; his time, his skill, his labor, his strength 



RELIGION 241 

of arm or brain are hers no less than his means. 
He cannot compound for any ransom, no matt^ 
how costly, his obligation or personal service 
in her army." 

Bonaparte's close friend for many years was 
Cardinal Gibbons. An address of welcome 
which Bonaparte made to the Cardinal on his 
return from abroad in 1900 is cited by Bona- 
parte's Mends and admirers as one of the finest 
specimens of his oratorical talents. It is to be 
regretted that it cannot be reproduced in full 
in these pages, for it well deserves such perma- 
nent preservation, but its length forbids. An 
extract must suffice. After speaking of the 
changes which had taken place in the countiy 
during the fourteoi years since the prdate had 
been made a Cardinal, he said: 

"But, amid these shif tings of shadows and 
breakings of bubbles, amid the death of the 
perishable and the birth of what is bom to die» 
that which lives truly and forever is now as it 
has been for fourteen years and for fourteen 
centuries: the truths God would have men 
know, the Church He has commissioned to 
teach them His truths, change not with ' the 
generations of man. Again greeting you in 
the name of those committed to your care, my 
first duty is to profess anew our unswerving 



!Z42 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

loyally to the Church, to declare once more our 
unfaltering faith in her mission and authority 
and to claim for each one of us, in all paths of 
public or private duty, her hand and her voice 
as unerring guides to righteousness." 

In 1903 the University of Notre Dame, at 
Notre Dame, Indiana, conferred upon Bona- 
parte the Leetare Medal. In his speech of ac- 
ceptance he dwelt, as was his almost invariable 
custom in addressing Cathohcs, on the necessity 
of members of the Chiux;h showing themselves 
good and loyal and useful citizens: 

"I think there are two important truths 
whereof American Catholics should be ever 
specially mindful, because, to a casual ^e, 
they seem to be sometimes forgotten by some 
American Catholics. We should always re- 
member that a man can have but one country, 
if he has, in very truth, a countiy at all. 
America is the home of exHes of many races, 
climes, tongues, and creeds; all kinds and con- 
ditions of men are welcome here, and out of 
all have been made, are daily made, good Amer- 
icans. But to become Americans, in the sense 
which makes them verily and indeed our 
brethren, they must cease to be something 
else; they must have left their old homes for 
ever, and in these all prejudices or passions, 
all enmities and quarrels which might make 



RELIGION 243 

them forget, even for a moment, that they are 
Americans and Americans only. 

"And it is of yet greater moment to the 
Church to have her children truly believe, and 
show forth by their lives how truly they do 
believe, that no man can be a good CathoUc 
who is not also a good citizen : that the obliga- 
tions of loyal obedience to constituted civil 
authority, of faithful and zealous fulfilment 
of the several duties imposed on each member 
of society by the law of the land, obligations 
which have beai ever and everywhere unequivo- 
cally recognized and emphatically proclaimed 
by the Church, rest sacredly upon eveiy free- 
man in a self-governing repubUc and forbid 
any surrender to selfishness or cowardice or 
sloth, any compromise with iniquity or dis- 
honor, in the work which his country demands 
of him. It is not enough that this doctrine be 
afiSrmed in oiu- catechisms or declared by our 
preachers: it must be recognized in our lives; 
when there shall be no imworthy citizen who is 
also in name a Catholic, the Catholic. Chm^h in 
America will have no enemy whom any good 
man would wish to be her friend." 

la similar vein he spoke in an address at the 
Commencement of the Roman Catholic High 
School in Philadelphia on June 12, 1903: 

"Organized fraud, open or secret bribery, 



944 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

official perjury, and breach of public trust, these 
things can never be trifling or indifferent to 
any agency that makes for righteousness. And 
if the Church of Christ exists among us, she 
exists as such an agency. The votary of Baal 
or Zeus or Wodin might consistently enough 
share with his deity the fruits of slaughter and 
pillage; there was in this, perhaps, less of grati- 
tude for past favors than a lively sense of favors 
to come; for, if he failed to divide equitably, 
the god might serve him some shabby trick 
whai nest he tackled his enemy. This view 
of the matter has outlived both the establish- 
ment of Christianity and the advent of modem 
civilization; when mediae val cattle-lifters sent 
tithes of their spoil to the nearest cathedral or 
abbey; when today Dives makes his millions 
by fraud and chicanery and, out of them, gives 
his thousands to home charities or foreign mis- 
sions, we saw and see the same human nature, 
threatened by the same dangers, using the same 
shifts. But they are no longer used consis- 
tently; a Christian has been told plainly, a 
Catholic Christian has been told more plainly 
still, that ihey are fooUsh and unavailing — 
nay, that they aggravate his guilt, that they 
heighten his peril. And for American Catho- 
lics, for the laity no less than for the clergy, it 



RELIGION US 

is an imperative, a sacred duty to show, and 
show 80 plainly that no man, in or out of the 
Church, can misread the showing, that as 
truly as she lives to point the way to Heaven, 
so tnily she lives likewise that truth and justice* 
honor and patriotism, good faith and fair deal- 
ing may also live among men." 

The libendiiy of his religious faith was dis- 
closed in an address which he delivered on "The 
Indian Problem" in Brooklyn on March 10, 
1905: 

"I have said that to civilize the Indian, we 
must first make him a Christian. What kind 
of a Christian shall we try to make him ? This 
is a grave and delicate question, but we must 
answer it, and answer it sensibly and candidly, 
with a full recognition of vital conditions in 
our national life and in entire loyalty to our 
country's institutions. I saw some time since 
in one of the papers of this city a statement 
to the effect, in substance, Uiat I would deal 
this evening with the Indian Problem 'from a 
Catholic standpoint.' I am a' Catholic and I 
suppose my hearers, at least in great majority, 
are Catholics likewise; in that sense the state- 
ment is true; but if any one believes that my 
words this evening are inspired by jealousy 
or hostility towards any other form of Chris- 



•246 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

tianity, by the wish to impede or belittle what 
sincere Christians of other denominations are 
doing for the Indian's betterment or by the 
purpose to claim or secure for Catholic agencies 
privileges or advantages of any kind which I 
and, so far as I know, all Catholics connected 
with the work among and for the Indians would 
not glad^ see oijoyed by Protestant agencies 
of like merit and working to the like ends, then 
the person so beUeving is unjust to me and is 
guilty of far more flagrant injustice to the 
Catholic Church in America. 

"There was once a prominent Englishman, 
notorious alike for his profligate life and for his 
violent hatred towards the Catholic religion, 
who described himself as 'a good Protestant 
though a bad Christian*; how far the first part 
of this description may have been appropriate, 
I leave Protestants to say, but I assert, with- 
out any fear of contradiction, that no one can 
be a good Catholic who is a bad Christian, and 
that no one can be either a good Catholic or a 
good Christian who sees with an evil eye good 
work done by good men because these men are 
not of his faith." 

In a sketch of Cardinal Gibbons which Bona- 
parte published in 1911, soon after the cele- 
bration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Cardi- 



RELIGION 247 

nal's elevation to the priesthood and the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of his appointment as Cardinal, 
he said of that universally honored and beloved 
churchman : 

"Honor and truth, good faith and patriotism, 
loyalty to our rulers, candor and charity towards 
our fellow men, these are not mere things of 
Caesar; he who turns his back on them denies 
the religion of Christ, forsakes the morality of 
the Gospel; and our fellow countrymen not of 
our faith become willing to believe that Catho- 
lics can be men of patriotism and honor when 
and because they see before them, as they see 
in him, a Catholic whom they know to be such 
a man. A son of the Church so justly honored, 
one who commands the esteem and affection of 
all his fellow citizens of whatever faith, lives a 
sermon which stills suspicion and sUences slan- 
der against his Church as can no effort of elo- 
quence or learning in her defense; his hfe 
teaches that no man can be truly a good Catho- 
lic who is not also truly a good citizen. And it 
teaches also that as in America the bitterness 
of religious prejudice has well-nigh died out 
under the softening influence of perfect freedom 
of conscience, so the Catholic Church is a true 
friend to our American Republic; that she is 
here to stay and to live, to hve with a buoyant 



248 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

and healthy life; that she is here, not to under- 
mine or pervert, but to strengthen and purify 
our popular government." 

He spoke with pride of the large proportirai 
of CathoUcs who took part in the World War, 
saying ia an address on "Why Catholics are 
Loyal," before the Holy Name Society in Balti- 
more, on April 28, 1918: 

"Were this little address a sermon I should 
take for my text those words of St. Peter where- 
in he urges his brethren to live as freemen, not 
using their liberty to cloak the indulgence of 
sinful passions, but as faithful servants of God 
and, for that reason, loyally obedient to what- 
ever form of government God's providence has 
placed over them. If such is the natural, nor- 
mal, and appropriate attitude of a Catholic 
citizen towards his country (and surely no 
Catholic will deny that it is), it must follow 
that the ideal country for a Cathohc is one 
whose form of government, whose laws, whose 
customs, whose standards of thought and life 
are such as to render this attitude on his part 
easy and congenial, to awaken his gratitude, to 
arouse his admiration, to engage his affections, 
and to make the full and cheerful discharge of 
his duties as a citizen, and, if need be, as a sol- 
dier, for him a labor of love; and I ask with 



RELIGION U9 

confidence: Where in the whole world of to- 
day will you find a country and pohtical insti- 
tutions so nearly in accord with this model as 
are our country and American liberty ? 

"Is American liberty friendly to Catholic 
truth? This question is an open one only for 
the blind; to answer it, those who can see need 
only open their eyes. When we became a na- 
tion Catholics were barely one per centum of 
our people; now they are probably about 17 
per centum; in that time Americans have in- 
creased in nimiber some 33 fold, American 
Catholics have increased some 560 fold; surely 
a plant which has grown so sturdily and so 
rapidly has fotmd a thoroughly congenial soil.** 

From the time that he took up his residence 
in the city till the end of his life he was active 
in the charitable work both of his Church and 
of the chief non-sectarian organizations. He 
was one of the fotmders of the Charity Organi- 
zation Society in 1881, and for many years the 
chairman of the Board of Managers. In this 
work, as in all others that he entered upon, he 
was zealous and constant. He never failed to 
attend the meetings of the Board, gave freely 
of his means, and was the eager and encourag- 
ing leader in every measure for carrying forward 
the society's labors. The same characteristics 



250 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

distinguished his co-oporation in the charitable 
activities of the Catholic Chinch. 

An address of welcome whidi he made to 
the delegates of the National Conference of 
Charities and Corrections, whidi met at Balti- 
more in May, 1890, and which greatly delighted 
his audience, showed that he carried into his 
charitable work the same saving sense of humor 
and the same sound common sense which in- 
variably accompanied him in every field of 
action. "Mankind's progress," he said, "is in 
large measure the work of cranks. Men of one 
idea, for whom some particular topic on which 
their thoughts have long run has an importance 
to normal minds preposterous and grotesque, 
who have become so one-sided as to seem in- 
tellectually distorted and unsightly, are after 
all those who cry out so long and loudly, and 
make themselves generally such bores, that at 
last they awake the world to its iniquities and 
its follies. Now, the State hardly knows how 
to make use of cranks. Either it ties them down 
to an enforced idleness, in which a well-known 
character has no end of mischief ready for their 
hands, or it gives them a free rein, and with a 
fair opportunity to ride promptly to the same 
notorious personage. Not a few who here re- 
lieve their minds by attending conferences and 



RELIGION 251 

reading papers might, in another countty, be 
loading dynamite bombs or trudging toward 
Siberia; while, on the other hand, if the wild 
schemes of social regeneration to which we now 
listen with composure, very much as we might 
look calmly at a lion out of a third story win- 
dow, could ever get at all near to realization, 
the results would be startling enough. 

" 'Think of two thousand gentlemen at least; 
And each one mounted on his capering beast.' 

"Yes, rather think of an indefinite number 
of philanthropists, and each one mounted on 
his curvetting hobby, and with power to punish 
with fine and imprisonment. If not with the 
guillotine, anybody who did not ride with them I 
If the State prevents enthusiasts from trying to 
make the world better, it becomes in their eyes 
the one hindrance to ushering in the golden 
age, and they become the most dangerous of 
conspirators. If it lends them its authority to 
convert their whimsies into facts of life, it 
creates an anarchical tyranny. 

"In the United States it does neither; it 
lets the would-be saviors of their kind try iheir 
hands at saving ad libitum, but at their cost 
and with no more potent sanction for the un- 
believing than their arguments and eloquence. 



252 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

Like the Pickwick Club, it 'cordially recognizes 
the principle of every member of . . . society 
defraying his own . . . expenses, and . . . sees 
no objection whatever to the members . . . 
pursuing their inquiries for any length of time 
they please upon the same terms/ " 



CHAPTER XXn 

NOTABLE APPRECIATIONS 

THE many persons of prominence in this 
country who came in personal contact 
with Bonaparte in his various fields of 
public and private service formed, one and all, 
^e same high estimate of his character, useful- 
ness, and ability. Such of these as were invited 
to place in form for publication in this record of 
his career their impressions of him responded 
that it would give them pleasure to do so. Their 
contributions are appended with the sincere 
thanks of the author and the assurance of his high 
sense of their supreme value to the narrative: 

Bt Chablbs W. £uot, LL.D. 

PRESIDENT EHERITUS OF HABVABD UNITEBBITT 

Charles Joseph Bonaparte entered Harvard 
College as a member of the Junior Class in 1869. 
His father had graduated at Harvard in the 
year 1836, and had maintained throughout his 
life friendly relations with several classmates 
who became distingui^ed in professional or 
public service. Because of his strong mental 



SM CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

powers, his keenness of thought, and his quick- 
ness of wit, the admixture of Corsican, Scotch- 
Irish, New Enghind, and Southern strains in 
his blood, and certain eccentricities of manner 
and speech which characterized him in youth 
and, indeed, throughout hfe, Charles became 
immediately an object of great interest to his 
classmates and his teachers. The sources of 
the interest he then inspired were the same 
which later made him interesting to his asso- 
ciates at the Bar, to his fellow citizens in Balti- 
more, and to his fellow members in the Cabinet 
of President Roosevelt (1905-1909), and in the 
various reform and public welfare commissions 
and societies which he diligently served all his 
life. All his natural gifts and acquired powers 
were used from youth to age for the promotion 
of the highest standards in private and pubUc 
life without fear or favor, and against selfish- 
ness, corruption, and extravagance in politics, 
no matter who the sinners were. In youth and 
age alike his wit and his reasoning were uncom- 
promising. He taught diligently that every 
man who took the benefit of fraudulent or vile 
conduct in others was himself guilty of fraud 
or vice — a very distast^ul doctrine to many 
Americans called successful in Bonaparte's time. 
It was a hard road which he began to travel 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 255 

when a student at Harvard; but he followed it 
courageously uid persistently. On this road he 
often said severe and cutting things, in spite of 
the amiability of his disposition and manners. 

He resented and attacked hotly what he re- 
garded as wrong-doing without considering at 
all his own interests or security, or the sensi- 
bilities of the wrong-doers; but generally in 
such action he believed himself to be defending 
some oppressed or wronged person, class, or 
race; and that purpose to defend right against 
wrong and weakness against power determined 
his political and social conduct &om his gradua- 
tion at the Harvard Law School to his death. 

The two years he passed in Harvard College 
were the years in which the organization of the 
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was be- 
gxm in a significant though feeble way. Young 
Bonaparte was one of the first Harvard Bache- 
lors of Art to give a year to work in that embiyo 
school. Then he entered the Law School just 
as the Langdell Case System of teaching law 
was getting strongly under way. He welcomed 
that method of instruction, and distinguished 
himself among the small group of students who 
early demonstrated the efficacy of the method. 

From the time he entered on the practice 
of law in Baltimore, his native city, his main 



256 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

purposes were to contribute to the wdl-being of 
the n^ro race lately anancipated but still op- 
pressed, to redeem American politics from prer- 
alent corruption and party selfishness, and to 
promote freedom and justice among all sorts and 
conditions of men. If he had any desoie for 
political office, he sacrificed it. If he thou^ 
that the history of his family and his inherited 
wealth should give him influence or power in 
the state and the city, he soon learned that 
the line of conduct which he had marked out 
for himself would not lead in those directions. 
He early became an active member of the Na- 
tional Civil Service R^orm League, and toc^ 
a vigorous part not only in support of the merit 
^stem in all public services but in exposing 
the customs of conspicuous spoilsmen. He was 
one of the original members of the National 
Municipal League, a body which attacked 
strongly intrenched abuses. He gladly served 
on the Board of Indian Commissioners, because 
he saw there means of befriending abused and 
robbed Indian tribes. When President Roose- 
vdt invited him to become a member of his 
Cabinet, first as Secretaiy of the Navy and 
then as Attorney-General, he regarded the sum- 
mons as a chance to effect much needed reforms, 
particularly in the Department of Justice. He 



NOTABLE APPRECIATIONS 257 

became a member of the Progressive party 
because of his confidence in Theodore Roose- 
velt and his belief that that party was more 
likely to eflfect improvements in democratic 
government than either the Republican or the 
Democratic party. One of his most charac- 
teristic habits was to give his professional ser- 
vices in negro cases before the United States 
Courts, cases in which he beKeved he could 
resist the injustices some of the Southern whites 
for many years after the Civil War tried to 
perpetrate upon them. This professional ser- 
vice he rendered to that race not only without 
compensation of any sort, but in face of certain 
loss of professional and social standing in his 
own community. Thereby he won the confi- 
dence and gratitude of the colored people not 

f only of Maryland but of the country. 

' Bonaparte was always an affectionate son of 
Harvard. He served twelve years as a member 
of the Board of Overseers, being twice elected 
to that Board by the votes of the Alumni. His 
service there was all the more valuable and in- 
teresting because of his family and personal 
connection with the Catholic Church. Until 
years comparatively recent few members of 
that Church were to be found among the gover- 

I nors, teachers, or students of Harvard Uni- 



268 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

versity. In this, as in many other respects, he 
was a pioneer. 

Finally, Bonaparte was kindly, genial, and 
dutiful in all the relations of family, profes- 
sional, and social life. 



Bt Richard Hbnrt Dana 

pbesident of the national civil 8ebticb 
refobm leagtte 

Charles J. Bonaparte's most lasting public 
service was in the cause of Civil Service Re- 
form; that reform of reforms; that foundation 
of all 8iu% progress towards good government. 
His work was that of a warrior, and a bold and 
courageous one too. He met his enemies face 
to face at a time when it took something of 
courage, physical as well as moral, to do the 
work that he did. 

The poUtical machine he attacked worked for 
the most part xmder Senator Gorman of Maiy- 
land. It had among its members thugs, ex- 
convicts, and persons indicted for murder. 
Political assassinations had actually taken place, 
and some of Bonaparte's friends feared for his 
life when he ruthlessly exposed the evil mach- 
inations of that political machine. 

Senator Gorman was typical of his time; a 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 259 

member of the Episcopal Church, revered xa 
private life and respected. He was a man of 
good character, beloved by his family and sound 
in business aff^s; but in politics he played the 
game as the game of politics was then and there 
played, which meant a resort to eveiy form of 
intrigue, to ihe extent of false counting of bal- 
lots, locking of doors, putting out of lights, and 
use of physical force at party primaries. 

I have heard many admirable addresses on 
the reform of the Civil Service, but the two that 
live in my mind as the most captivating were 
the last one that was ever given by George Wm. 
Curtis, wholly extemporary and never reported, 
and the other was one by Charles J. Bonaparte. 
They were different, but Bonaparte's was the 
most incisive; there was more of the sharp thrust 
of the rapier, the quick humor, and sarcasm, 
which kept his audience in a state of intoise 
excitement, bursting out into frequent applause 
and laughter. 

Bonaparte was something more than a theo- 
retical reformer. When Attomey-Greneral of 
the United States he found in his office five 
men receiving lai^e salaries and doing almost 
nothing, as the work for which they had been 
originally employed, which was connected with 
the Civil War of 1861/5, had been completed. 



«60 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

As a Civil Service reformer, and an ardent 
patriot, he felt it his duty to dismiss these men. 
He found, however, that this was no easy task. 
His office was filled with Senators and Repre- 
sentatives of the Congress who demanded that 
these men should be retained on account of 
the political and social influence of their friends 
and relatives. Bonaparte, however, persisted, 
and the amount of money which they had been 
receiving for their salaries, and the floor space 
they uselessly occupied, were saved for the 
public b^iefit. 

It has sometimes been said that Bonaparte 
had a more destructive than constructive mind. 
I know, however, that in the Navy Department 
he succeeded in extending the Civil Service rules 
to skilled mechanics and laborers In the Navy 
Yards. The plan to do so aroused the opposi- 
tion of his Chief Clerk, a man long in the ser- 
vice, who said it could not be done because it 
never had been done, an argument not alto- 
gether convincing to Bonaparte. 

However, to the end of his days he was 
chiefly a fighter of evils and not a constructor 
of preventive measures. 

His attacks aroused public opinion to ap- 
preciate the horrors and degradations of the 
spoib system, and he educated a body of young 



NOTABLE APPRECIATIONS «61 

men who, in the hitherto hopeleas city of Balti- 
more and before Bonaparte's death, succeeded 
in procuring Civil Service laws with effective 
provisions, and at last public opinion was so 
aroused in favor of the reform that the r^ular 
politicians of Maryland no longer dared to op- 
pose it, which happy consummation we owe 
mainly to the life and services of our old friend* 
Charles J. Bonaparte. 

I cannot close without speaking of his gen- 
erous hospitality, his graceful gestures with 
his refined huids, his good breeding, his flow 
of conversation from a fount of varied informa- 
tion, and his kindly and genial humor among 
his friends. 

I last saw him in his Baltimore house not 
long before his death, and though he was under 
strict orders to avoid needless exertion, after 
ending a very agreeable talk he insisted on 
rising from his chair and escorting us to the 
door, where we bade him what proved to be 
our last good-bye. 



«6i2 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 
Bt William Dudley Foulee, LL.D. 

FOBUER MEMBEB OF NATIONAL CIVIL 
SERVICE COMBUBSION 

I first met Charles J. Bonaparte at one of 
the early meetings of the National Civil Senice 
Reform League at Newport; I think it was in 
1886. George William Curtis had just delivered 
one of those memorable addresses which were 
landmarks in the record of the reform as well 
as in the history of American eloquence. This 
was in the Channing Manorial Church and 
afterwards the members of the League, repre- 
senting some seventeen associations, assembled 
in the parlors of the church. Carl Schurz, Dor- 
man B. Eaton, Everett P. Wheeler and perhaps 
two score of the other pioneers in the reform 
were present. Mr. Curtis called for one member 
from each association to give an account of 
what it had been doing. Among the earliest 
on the list was the Baltimore Association and 
he called the name of Charles J. Bonaparte as 
its representative to speak. The name of Bona- 
parte could hard^ be unknown to anyone but 
up to that time I had heard nothing of this 
particular gentleman who bore it. A young 
man arose whose face bore no faint resemblance 
to that of the man so illustrious in history. Li 



NOTABLE APPRECIATIONS 263 

a quiet but inimitable manner which I can never 
foi^t and in a voice which sometimes turned 
to falsetto, he remarked that the Baltimore 
association had been very successful in only 
one thing and that was in making an unmiti- 
gated nuisance of itself to pretty much every 
one in authority. He detailed the rascality of 
those then in power and the quite ineffectual 
efforts of the association to stem the tide of 
political debauchery which universally pre- 
vailed. We were greatfy amused at his recital 
of the desperate condition of affairs in Mary- 
land but I think we were also convinced that 
under the satirical thrusts of such an antagonist 
the forces of evil were not Ukely to have smooth 
sailing. 

It was not long after this when, upon the ad- 
vent of General Harrison to the Presidency, a 
conference was called by the Baltimore Asso- 
ciation of the friends of Civil Service Reform 
in all parts of the country. I attended this 
conference representing the Indiana Associa- 
tion. 

Mr. Bonaparte presided at the evening meet- 
ing which was addressed by Mr. Richard H. 
Dana, by Theodore Roosevelt and by myself. 
After Mr. Dana and Mr. Roosevelt had both 
described conditions in the civil service which 



264 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

were grotesquely deplorable, Mr. Bonaparte 
introduced me with the humorous remark that 
as my subject dealt with the future of the re- 
form I was not to be tied down by disagreeable 
facts but might allow my hope and my imagina- 
tion to wander through the most blissful visiouis 
of our coming prosperity and triumph. 

On this occasion Mr. Bonaparte entertained 
a number of us at the historic dwelling in which 
were gathered so many of the memories and 
indeed some of the trophies of the world's his- 
tory. I recall one incident which illustrates 
the courtesy of our host. Mr. Swift and I had 
just arrived from Indiana. This was in the 
evening, We had been asked to go to Mr. Bona- 
parte's house immediately to confer with a 
number of the other delegates who were dining 
with him. We arrived before his guests had 
risen from the table. They were in evening 
dress while we were in our traveling clothes, 
not yet having gone to our hotel. On the fol- 
lowing evening Mr. Swift and I were invited 
to dine with Mr. Bonaparte and naturally ar- 
rayed ourselves in our best, but what was our 
surprise to see the rest of the company in every- 
day business attire. The reason was un- 
doubtedly that we, who came from the wild 
and woolly west and were not suspected of hav- 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 265 

ing any other kind of garments, might be ill at 
ease if we were not like the oiiiers in our sp- 
parel. But the result was that not only at the 
dinner but at the public evening meeting after- 
wards it was distinctly observable that nobody 
except the two Hoosiers had come forth ar- 
rayed in the glory of evening costume. 

Some years after this there was a dinner given 
to the League at the Savoy Hotel in New York. 
Bishop Potter presided and Mr. Roosevelt, 
who was then governor, spoke. He discussed 
the need of having civil service examinations 
of "a practical character," adapted not only to 
the office to be filled but to the particular locid- 
ity in which the man was to serve. He had 
been civil service commissioner for six years 
and he knew thoroughly all the requirements. 
He thought a marshal or deputy collector of 
customs at El Paso, Texas, ought to have quite 
a different examination from a similar official 
in New York, that it would be useful for a man 
on the Rio Grande to be "handy with his gun" 
and it might therefore be a good thing to have 
a competitive examination in marksmanship. 
I was sitting next to Mr. Bonaparte and he 
suggested to me, sotto voce, that it might be 
still better in such an examination to have the 
fq>plicants shoot at one another. I enlaced 



«e6 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

upon this when called upon to speak just after- 
wards and said that with those sanguinary in- 
stincts which Mr. Bonaparte had no doubt 
inherited, he had made this still more "prac- 
tical" suggestion, which had indeed one dear- 
able feature, that it would render Unnecessaiy 
the marking of the papers since the survivor 
would automatically obtain the place. 

Mr. Bonaparte was constancy making such 
humorous and grotesque but always apt sug- 
gestions. Sometimes they were taken too seri- 
ously. I remember once that when he was 
Attorney General and was prosecuting the 
trusts, he remarked that where the cov^ was 
so hxge it would be remarkable if a discjiarge 
from a shotgun could not bring down at least 
one or two of the birds. Whereupon he was 
roundly denounced by the papers supporting 
big business for the utterly heartless manner in . 
which he had spoken of those who were defend- 
ing thdr own ! To a man devoid of any soise 
of humor a good deal of what Mr. Bonaparte 
said must have been incomprehensible. 

He always spoke best, as it seemed to me, 
when he spoke extemporaneously. His diction 
on such occasions was quite as fine as if he had 
written every word in advance and the thrust 
(A his rapicT was even more merciless for those 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 267 

who had viokited the plain injunctions of mor- 
ality. 

I have never known a man whose instinct 
for political rectitude was more unerring than 
that of Mr. Bonaparte. He was himself a pure 
and a just man and he scorned beyond measure 
those who trafficked in public office and be- 
trayed the cause of their countiy for their per- 
sonal or political advantage. 

Mr. Bonaparte was not in the least effusive. 
It was not his way to tell his associates how 
much he loved them, but his actions in this 
regard were more eloquent than his words. 
Though he never said anything about it, I was 
always sure he was my steadfast friend and on 
my part I regarded him with a deep and abid- 
ing affection. 

By Ltrcnrs B. Swift 
In the Blaine campaign of 1884 I was Ghair^ 
man of the Indiana Mugwimip Committee of 
One Hundred which supported Mr. Cleveland 
who carried the state by a small majority. The 
following four years of his administration I was 
among those who tried hard to secure the en- 
forcement of the civil service law in Indiana, 
in which attempt we failed. For that reason, 
in 1888 we very actively supported General 



288 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

Harrison who carried the state by a small ma- 
jority, la March following the election I at- 
tended a national conference of men opposed 
to sordid politics in the conduct of government* 
called to meet in Baltimore. It was a gathering 
of notable men and among them were Theodore 
Roosevelt and Mr. Bonaparte both of whom I 
met for the first time. I was the guest of John 
C. Rose now United States Judge in Baltimore 
and went with him to call upon Mr. Bonaparte 
at his office. He was not there but soon came 
in, a man I knew at once from his Bonaparte 
facial resemblance. That was thirty-three years 
ago. 

Ever since the Civil War I had watched the 
discussion of the proposal to substitute the merit 
system for the spoils system in the civil service 
and I had beoi attracted by the name "Bona- 
parte" which I noted belonged to one of the 
ablest and most uncompromising leaders. I 
felt a pride that one of that name and lineage 
was an American who stood for the democracy 
of the merit ^stem and that pride was vastly 
increased, as by close association during all the 
years following our first meeting I found what 
an absolute^ unselfish, devoted and fearless 
American he was. 

His manners notably showed his French de> 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 269 

scent and to us, his colleagues, he was uncon- 
sciously a constant lesson in gracious urbanity. 
Li getting the places transfored from the spoils 
system to the competitive system, we had to 
deal with a compact and powerful national or- 
ganization composed of "boys in the trenches" 
and their leaders. They were politically desper- 
ate and they did everything possible to put an 
^d to the growth and even the existence of the 
competitive system. Out here in Indiana we 
believed that the way to get in was to say and 
do things that hurt and we used the bludgeon. 
Mr. Bonaparte agreed with us entirely that the 
hide of the spoilsman was thick and that you 
must say and do things which get imder it and 
made him smart. The fight which he carried 
on for many years in Maryland in behalf of 
good government is a masterpiece in civil prog- 
ress worthy of any student and is fotmd recorded 
in his own paper, the Civil Service Reformer of 
Baltimore, and in the Civil Service Record 
edited by Richard H. Dana of Boston and to a 
greater extent in our Civil Service Chronicle 
at Indianapolis. But in this fight, where we 
used a bludgeon, he used a rapier. His abun- 
dant supply of good natured wit and sarcasm 
even when dealing with his ugliest enemies 
found free play and illuminated his facts and 



270 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

reasoning. He was without fear, he asked no 
quarter and once his grip held, he never let go. 
He always adapted himself to his antagonist. 
A Republican club in Baltimore had adopted 
resolutions censuring civil service reform and 
Mr. Bcmaparte. His fuiswer affords a typical 
instance of Mr. Bonaparte in action : 

"The typical 'R^ublican Club' is well known 
in Baltimore poUtics. It is one of the many 
unholy fruits of our proximity to Washingttm 
and of Uie long control of Federal patronage 
by the party here in an evident minority. Its 
genesis is familiar to us all. A politician, boom- 
ing himself for some office, 'rounds up* in a 
room he has hired over a grogshop a herd of 
shabby loafers, buys for them, on the install- 
ment plan, a second-hand table and chairs, 
guarantees than a reasonable credit at the 
bar downstairs, picks out one relative^ sober 
as president and one not wholly illiterate as 
secretary, and behold Uie Elijtdi Pogram Re- 
publican Club of the Twenty-third ward, bom 
on its brief life and ready to 'resolute* and 'dele- 
gate' in its owner's interest. 

"When these gentry tell us that Uiey detest 
civil service reform, they give us no news. We 
are as ready to believe this as that they abhor 
cleanliness and sobriety and honest endeavor 



NOTABLE APPRECUTIONS 271 

and wellnigh everything which makes man esti- 
mable or life in civilized society a source of 
happiness. If the convicts in our penitentiary 
or the pnsoners in our jail graved resolved that 
th^ didn't like those laws which prevent or 
pimish larceny, no one would question their 
sincerity." 

It was a pleasure to work with such a man, 
never weak-kneed, never doubting, never tired 
of the fight to put politics out of routine public 
business, and believing in hard hitting. At 
times the social hour had its turn and then his 
rare and scintillating quaUties had full play. 
Once my wife was for the day at his country 
place and he gave his day to her entertainment. 
He brought out the diary of his grandmother 
written when she was in Europe in Bonaparte 
limes and read with gusto her strictures upon 
members of the Bonaparte family. 

I shall close by repeating what I wrote to 
^Sxs. Bonaparte after his death: 

"The memory of the life of Mr. Bonaparte 
fills me with the deepest admiration. He was 
one of that band of working comrades which I 
was permitted to join. He was every inch an 
Aifierican and every inch a king." 



272 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

Bt Jahes R. Garfield 

former secbetary of the intebior 

(See also Chapter XV) 

My association with Mr. Bonaparte was 
most agreeable. He was a delightful gentle- 
man of infinite tact, sound judgment, and an 
ever-present humor. These qualities were dis- 
played to his intimate fnoids, but I surmise 
that those who did not know him well looked 
upon him as rather cold or perhaps hau^ty. 

His sympathies were broad: he gave a great 
deal of attention in Baltimore to philanthropic 
and welfare work, and was always ready, aa a 
good citizen should be, to aid in matters of 
public interest. 



CHAPTER XXin 
FORMAL TRIBUTES OF ASSOCUTBS 

MANY testimonials of esteem and hcmor 
were paid to Bonaparte's memory in 
the days following his death. A 
marked feature of these was the warm personal 
r^ard that found expression in them. He had 
not only by his high attainments and unselfish 
public service won the profound respect of his 
associates, but also, by his simple and noble 
character, their genuine aflfection. His fellow 
members ia the Council of Uie Civil Service 
Reform League, looking back over the Uiirty 
years in which he, as member and officer, had 
worked with untiring zeal in their cause, said 
in a commemoration resolution : 

*'It is not only with admiration, but with a 
sense of deep personal affection, that the mem- 
bers of the Council of the National Civil Ser- 
vice Reform League recall the Ufe and services 
of their eminent colleague and former Chair* 
man, Charles J. Bonaparte. He was a member 
and active participant in the work of the League 
from its earliest days. The strength and purity 



274 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

of his character, the loftiness of his ideals, and 
his learning and ability are universally recog- 
nized. What distinguished him from others 
and made his advocapy of civil service reform 
so effective was his absolute fearlessness, the 
clarity and felicity of his expression, his powers 
of sarcasm and his caustic wit. 

"As Secretary of the Navy and as AttomQ^- 
General he carried out with unswerving fidelity 
the principles he had so long advocated. 

"In his own state it was from the seeds of his 
planting that the recent successes of the reform 
have grown. 

"His whole life, like that of the foimders of 
the Repubhc, was devoted to the public welfare 
rather than to his personal interests, and his 
example as well as his teaching will be of in- 
estimable value to his countrymen." 

The Bench and Bar of Baltimore united in 
one of the most notable and impressive tributes 
ever paid to a member of the I^al profession 
of the city or, indeed, to any of its citizens. A 
memorial meeting was called for September SO, 
1921, and a committee of members of the Bar 
was appointed to prepare an appropriate minute 
to be spread upon the records of the Supreme 
Bench. The exercises were held in the Superior 
Coiut room, with the judges of the Supreme 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 275 

Court, the Court of Appeals and of the Tlnited 
States District Court occupying seats on the 
bench. In the audience, which filled the court- 
roonii were members and friends of the Bona- 
parte family and a large attendance of lawyers. 
In their minute which the committee, composed 
of W. Hall Harris, Alexander Armstrong, Joseph 
Packard, George R. Gaither, M^lliam Cabell 
Bruce, Charles Morris Howard, and Robert 
Biggs, had prepared, they said in closing their 
review of his career: 

"In every relation of life striving earnestly 
and sincerely to do his whole duty. A gentle- 
man of courtesy and consideration; a scholar 
of erudition; a lawyer of exceptional ability; 
a gallant apostle of reform; a valiant champion 
of the helpless; a really good citizen; a true 
and steadfast friend; an affectionate and con- 
siderate husband. 

"A man with a vision; serving his day and 
generation in the station in which it pleased 
God to place him, recognizing the obligation 
and the dignity of service to his fellow-men; 
holding high the standard of righteousness, 
individual, civic, national, and ever striving to 
lead his brethren to see it and to serve under 
it; a true and an uncompromising American 
dtizen." 



276 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

After reading the minute, Mr. Harris* the 
chairman of the committee, paid this feeling 
personal tribute: 

"There was an aspect of Mr. Bonaparte's 
life not dwelt upon in this minute and not ap- 
parent to the public. He was naturally a 
modest and reserved man> with many frioida 
and few intimates. Of his home life there are 
few competent to testify, and they cannot bring 
themselves to speak of the beauty of that which 
they feel he would himself have regarded as 
veiled from pubUc concern. They alone know 
to the uttermost his affectionate consideration, 
his unfiling sympathy, his intimate interest in 
the welfare of others, his generous assistance, 
his wise counsel, his unfailing patience and 
cheerfulness under adverse conditions. They 
know their loss to be irretrievable and the ex- 
pression of their sorrow to be beyond their 
power." 

Mr. William Cabell Bruce, &om whose address 
I have quoted on a previous page, spoke from 
an intimate acquaintance of many years, say- 
ing of Bonaparte's personal characteristics: 

"To me his figure was one of the most vivid 
and interesting of our day; not only because 
of his fearl^s spirit and Alining talents, but 
even because of his idiosyncrasies of manner 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES arr 

and speech, — his restless movonents when 
seated, his swaying gait on the street, his in- 
credulous laugh, his peculiar intonations. In 
every respect he bore the stamp of original- 
ity about him, and differed from most men as 
widely in his physical as in his intellectual char- 
acteristics. Nor could anyone well scan his 
features, so true to his family descent, without 
being reminded of the fact that he enjoyed the 
extraordinary distinction of being the grand- 
nephew of perhaps the most renowned man in 
human history, the Great Napoleon, whose 
progress through the world had shaken it to 
its very foimdations. 

"Of Mr. Bonaparte as a writer and an orator, 
it is easy to ^>eak in enthusiastic terms. He 
was imcommonly familiar with the master- 
pieces of general Uterattue, and this familiarity 
was happily reflected in both his written and 
spoken words. Some of his occasional addresses 
were models of lucid, pointed and sparkling 
compodtion; and, strongly marked as his de- 
livery was by abnormal peculiarities of modula- 
tion and gesture, he never failed to enchain the 
attention of his audience. As a rule, he brought 
the most sedulous degree of verbal preparation 
to his speeches, but, when he was unexpectedly 
called upon, he was the readiest impromptu 



«78 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

speaker that I at least have ever heard. On 
such occasions, nothing could be more delight- 
ful than the wit and pleasantry which flowed 
from his lips like water gliding over the face of 
a smooth rock." 

To his indomitable courage and lofty zeal 
as a reformer of political abuses, Mr. Bruoe 
gave this eloquent testimony : 

"But it is as a political reformer that Mr. 
Bonaparte is entitled to be held in the highest 
respect. He was not a reformer ip the much- 
abused sense in which that word is so often 
employed at the present lime. He was no hys- 
terical uplifter, to use the cant term of our age; 
no visionary idealist; no reckless a^tator; no 
mere fanatical enthusiast. He was a reformer 
in the good old sober sense only; that is to say^ 
a statesman just a Httle ahead of his time. All 
of his tmder^ying instincts were profound^ con- 
servative; indeed, one of his infirmities was his 
hostJHty to certain forms of economic progress. 
Even his quarrel with the oligarchy of profes- 
sional relations of life-long antagonism, was not 
so much that it obstructed the adoption of new 
political ideas and methods, as that it deprived 
the citizen of existing Constitutional and legal 
nghts which required further legislative pro- 
tection. All the reforms which he espoused 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 279 

were simpfy nonnaj and logical extensions of 
the old immemorial principles of English and 
American Liberty and Justice. But within the 
limits of his reformatoty creed> never was there 
a more courageous, a more zealous, a more con- 
sistent, reformer. For years he was the leading 
spirit of the Reform League and the Civil Ser- 
vice Reform Association of Maryland — two 
oi;ganiza1ions which exerted a powerful influence 
in emancipating the politics of this city and 
state from personal and parUsan misrule. 
Again and again, the causes in which he was 
interested might have been fitly compared to 
tones of the human voice thrown back in feeble 
reverberations from granite walls; but no mat- 
ter how dark the horizon, like the stem Re- 
publican of the English Civil War, he never 
abated one jot of heart or hope, but steered 
right onward. Other men might fall by the 
wayside; other men might be seduced from 
their political pledges by the solicitations, in 
one form or another, of selfish ambition or cu- 
pidity, but his political course was ever marked 
by an imdeviating adherence to the lofty ideals 
and noble aims which he formed in his early 
manhood and unflinchingly asserted until the 
last day of his life. If ever there was a man 
who could say truthfully of himself, 'Obeyed at 



280 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPAETE 

eve the voice ob^ed at prime,' it was he. I toe 
one do not doubt that there was never a mo- 
ment in his life when, if need were, he would 
not have been ready cheerful^ to give up his 
existence itself in the maintenance of the con- 
victicMis, which, I am sure, neither the wealth 
of Crcesus nor the loftiest office in the gift of 
the American People, nor the heat of the stake 
could have induced him to deserL For years 
they were the objects in no small degree of de- 
rision, scorn and hatred, and subjected him to 
the grossest misconceptions and misrepresenta- 
tions. But how ignoble a thing does intolerance 
once more appear when we remember that not 
one solitary political reform that he ever advo- 
cated, whether it was the Australian ballot law, 
the Corrupt Practices Act, tiie Merit System 
of appointment, or some otiier like reform, but 
has now found its way to the Statute Book of 
Maryland. 

"That he was honorable, truthful and up- 
right, as well as brave, it is hardly necessary 
for me to say. He despised cant, humbug, 
hypocrisy and demagoguery, and at times it 
was interesting to see how they shrivelled up 
like paper in the 6ame of a candle when he 
brought that searching eye and skeptical laugh 
of his to bear upon them. No man, not even 
Napoleon himself, with all his scorn of what he 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 281 

was in the habit of contemptuously terming 
'ideology,' ever had a firmer hold upon the 
realities of existence. This was most strikingly 
shown on the eve of the recent war, when, long 
before some of our public representatives at 
Washington could be made to recognize the 
possibility of such a thing as a war between 
this country and Germany, he had passed from 
rostrum to rostrum silencing the chatter of the 
pacifist and the tremulous cry of the craven with 
his stem admonition that men, as so often be- 
fore, were crying peace ! peace ! when there was 
no peace, and that nothing but strong arms 
and dauntless hearts could meet the urgent 
needs of the hour. 

"In my intercourse with him, which extended 
over a period of nearly forty years, I never ob- 
served anything in his disposition or bearing 
that did not betoken a kind, courteous and 
considerate gentleman. 

"Of the dignity and beauty of his family 
Ufe, I should not speak, even if I had a better 
right to do so than I have. It is sufficient to 
say that one needed to be but slightly ac- 
quainted with it to realize that the richest 
measure of human affection has now made it 
too sacred to be freely spoken of on a pubhc 
occasion like this." 

Mr. George R. Gaither, who had been asso- 



S82 CHABLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

dated with Bonaparte in many political move- 
ments, stud of that branch of his activities: 

"In his poliUcal activities Charles J. Bona- 
parte was always 8u£Sciently independent to 
refuse to support his party if he thou^t it in 
the wrong* and yet so devoted to Its fundamen- 
tal principles that he could return to its sup- 
port without the slightest loss of party stand- 
ing. He was a goiuine believer in American 
institutions, an ardent advocate of the highest 
ideals of public service, a democrat in his re- 
spect for the rights of his fellow-coxmtrymen, 
and a relentless foe of every corrupt and hypo- 
critical influence in the poUtical life of his city 
and state. It is a glorious heritage for our pro- 
fes^on that one of her sons, without the ^ur 
<rf necessity and against the environment of 
heredity and association, chose to give the best 
of his character, ability and energy to the im- 
selfidi service of his fellow-countrymen, and to 
the betterment of political conditions. With 
imswerving fidelity to his ideals he fought the 
battle for civic freedom and righteousness." 

Mr. Charles Morris Howard spoke of Bona- 
parte in that aspect of him which especially 
commended him to Theodore Roosevelt — as 
a "fighting lawyer": 

"Mr. Bonaparte was the possessor of at- 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 288 

tributes which can ill be spared in these some- 
what vexed and chaotic times. He had energy* 
clear-sightedness, physical and moral courage 
and immense steal for the pubUc welfare. Being 
in easy circumstances, he might readily have 
passed his life in idleness or self-indulgence, but 
he practised an almost Spartan simplicity and 
was an inveterate worker. I think it may taMy 
be said that the desire for justice, public and 
private, furnished the motive power of his life 
and he worked for it tmceasingfy. Being a 
man of broad horizon, he was naturally inter- 
ested in underlying principles, but it would be 
a mistake to suppose that he merely theorized 
about public life. Whoi constructive or re- 
medial measures were in preparation, no one 
could be more painstaking or more thorough in 
his examination of all details. His capacity for 
self-imposed drudgery was apparent to all who 
worked with him. 

"He was a speaker of pungent utterance and 
of caustic wit. He was ever a fighter. Some 
there were who regarded him as unnecessarily 
severe, but it is to be remembered that \he 
ninth and tenth decades of the last century 
was a time when corruption, both in business 
and politics, probably attained its fullest de- 
vek^ment. Big business was linked with little 



284 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

politics and little politics invariably exacted its 
toll from big business, which in turn big busi- 
ness had not the courage to resist. Honied 
phrases were not suited to those times. Mr. 
Bonaparte's invective was both necessary and 
salutary. Without the slightest regard for his 
personal fortunes, he spoke out with the direct- 
ness and earnestness of the Hebrew Prophets. 
His ideals were lofty and he could see no reason 
either for compromising or concealing them. I 
do not think he was a man of strong personal 
animosities. When he blazed with the greatest 
heat, it was only because he loved truth and 
hated meanness." 

Mr. Alexander Armstrong, Attorney-General 
of the State, and a Democrat, dwelt on that 
leading attribute of Bonaparte's character, his 
intense Americanism: 

"I have always felt that the secret of ]Sfo. 
Bonaparte's successful career lay in his intense 
Americanism. He was the embodiment of the 
true American spirit, representing our best 
traditions, finest principles and most exalted 
aspirations. Although he cherished a deep 
faith in the structure of the Government as 
planned by the great fathers, he nevertheless 
challenged as dangerous and un-American cer- 
tain developments which manifested themselves 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 285 

about the middle of the last century. The man 
who beheved that 'to the victor belongs the 
spoils,' that every political office, high or low, 
was the legitimate prey of the poUtical hench- 
man, and that every poUtical contest should 
be won whether by fair means or foul, became 
the target of his unrelenting attack, and so 
bitter and persistent was the war waged by 
him and his associates that the old-fashioned 
'boss* was final^ dethroned and substantially 
shorn of his power. Mr. Bonaparte was also 
a potent factor in weaving into the fabric of 
our governmental life the principle of civil ser- 
vice, recognizing fitness and fidelity in the per- 
formance of official duties, but he also cham- 
pioned the cause of good government in Mary- 
land and materially aided in the establishment 
of legal saf^uards which guaranteed a free, 
unbiased and accurate expression of the public 
will. His record was in no sense the result of 
accident; it was the product of constant ap- 
plication and conscious choice. Although pos- 
sessed of large wealth, he brought to the prac- 
tice of the law the same earnestness, application 
and enthusiasm whidi might have characterised 
one who depended upon his professional income 
for his daily bread. Although a Republican by 
birth and conviction, he did not hesitate, upon 



286 CHABLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

occasims, to turn away from Republican candi- 
dates and platforms which appeared to violate 
those standards of political thought and con- 
duct of which his conscience approved. He 
desired above all things to be right, to be true 
to all those conc^tions of citi^nship whi<^ 
had been fashioned by his mind and heart, and 
so deep wa% his convictions, so great his cour- 
age, that in order to be right and true he was 
willing to sever old ties and abandon for a Unte 
long established relationships. 

"Mr. Bonaparte was not only a magnetic 
and powerful influence in Maryland in that 
critical epoch of her history when leaders of 
clear vision, pure motives and fiery zeal were 
espedally needed, but was also called by reason 
of his wide^ acknowledged ability to iiie coun- 
cils of the nation. He was one of fourteen 
Haiylanders to sit in the Presidential Cabinet 
and the latest to enjoy that distinction. He 
was one of six Maiylanders to act as Attorney 
General of the United States, and one of four 
to serve as Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Bona- 
parte's long and enviable record justly entitles 
him to be consid«%d one of Maryland's noblest 
sons. His active contributions to the public ser- 
vice were substantially ended some years prior 
to his death, but they dealt with principles so 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES S87 

fundamental and so vital to the perpetuation 
of American institutions that the labors he per- 
fonned are still bearing bountiful harvests, not 
only to the people of Maryland, but to all the 
vast citizenship of the great nation which he 
loved so well." 

As the closing speaker of the occasion, Chief 
Judge Soper called upon John C. RosCj Pre- 
siding Judge of the IT. S. District Court in 
Maryland, to respond on behalf of the Supreme 
Bench of Baltimore City. In his address, which 
he subsequently amplified into a biographical 
sketch of Bonaparte for the Harvard Graduates* 
Magazine, Judge Rose said; 

"He was by nature something of a literalist. 
When he was told that this corporation or that 
wanted to obey the law, he replied: 'Well, do 
so; there is the Act, and in the Trans-Missouri 
Freight Association and the Joint Traffic Asso- 
ciation eases the Supreme Court has in effect 
said that reason cannot be resorted to in de- 
termining whether a particular case is within 
the prohibition of the anti-trust statutes. Do 
not try to buy up your competitors; enter into 
no agreements or understandings with any of 
them by which prices will be directly or indi- 
rectly fixed; abandon all efforts to control or 
monopolize the markets, and you will be safe.* 



288 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE 

More, or other, it was impossible to get from 
him, and, like the young man of nineteen cen- 
turies ago, they went away sorrowful. 

"In his dealings with these representatives of 
great business interests, he exhibited the same 
traits of character so prominently displayed in 
his long fight for better things in city, state and 
nation. He knew his visitors wanted him to 
point out some way by which they could safely 
do what the statutes intended they should not 
do at all, and Bonaparte persistently kept that 
fact ever before them, just as he always said 
that the gift of a purely administrative public 
post to some one as a reward for party service 
was a breach of trust; the manipulation of 
election maclunery a treasonable fraud; the 
protection of those who lived off the vices of 
the community a participation in their mis- 
deeds. Those who had an interest in any of 
these practices, and at the same time liked to 
feel themselves respectable, found exceeding 
bitter the apples from this particular branch of 
the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 

'*In body and largely in mind one may think 
his Italian ancestry manifested itself, and to 
that, perhaps, may be traced his looks, his man- 
ner, his courtesy, his wit, his capacity for cold, 
accurate, pitiless analysis, and a certain dash 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 289 

of cynicism with which his talk was flavored; 
but, after all, he was only one-fourth Corsican. 
His mother was of New England stock; the 
Pattersons were Scotch-Irish, and through the 
Spears and the Copelands the blood of Mary- 
land and the South ran in his veins. There was 
from New England and Ulster a large element 
of the Puritan in him, and, although his theo- 
logical views were poles away from Puritanism, 
he was at one with the best of the Puritans in 
his conception of the relation of moral to all 
other values. It was that conception which 
moulded his character and constrained him to 
put all his gifts of mind to the real work of his 
hfe, which, after all is said and done, was not at 
the Bar, distinguished and creditable as what 
he there did was. His great service to his fel- 
low-citizens was his fearless, untiring and un- 
compromising battle for higher standards of 
public life. 

"He had no pity for those who wished to 
think themselves decent and respectable, but 
who were longing over-much for the honors and 
emoluments which were in the gift of the cor- 
rupt and corrupting bosses of the day. He had 
no mercy with those who wanted to run with 
the hare and hunt with the hounds. What he 
said and what he wrote cut many to the quick. 



290 CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPABTE 

They felt that he had done them an injustice. 
In a sense th^ were sometimes right in that 
his portraits of them were not fully rounded 
and did not take account of the poEstions in 
which they found themselves and still less of 
thdr poHtical convictions or prejudices which 
led them to suppose that in what they were 
doing th^ were choosing the least of two evils. 
He did not claim to be writing balanced biog- 
raphies which accurate^ appraised not onify 
their weak but their strong quaUties. He was 
busy with something else. He took a particular 
thing that th^ had done or defended and he 
dracribed it as it was. It was in the very 
accuracy of these characterizations that their 
mercilessness lay. 

**His lo^c was uncompromising. If the prac- 
tice he was discussing was stealing votes or 
breaking trusts, he insisted that every man 
who aided or abetted it, or who was willing to 
take the benefit of it, was a thief or a defaulter. 
It almost seemed as if he subjected character 
to a spectroscopic test, and called public at- 
tention to the lines which demonstrated the 
presence of base elements. He was not con- 
cerned with whatever else the spectroscope 
might reveal. The men he was attacking might 
be of many and divers virtues. That was not 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 291 

his affair. He kept his finger pointing to the 
black lines, not because he wanted to do those 
men any harm, for I do not think he had a touch 
of malice about him, but because he had per- 
suaded himself that it was only in that way 
that he could teach many of his fellow-citizens 
th&t they were paying too high a price for what 
they were getting out of corrupt poUtics. How 
angiy he made those he assailed, and yet al- 
ways down at the bottom of their hearts they 
had an uncanny feeling that he was at least 
partially right. In the end many of them made 
up their minds that they could no longer stand 
for those things which he had charged against 
them, and then reform came. 

"It was a difficult and unpopular role he took 
for himself, but yet for decades he followed it 
with unflinching courage and never-flagging 
persistence. I imagine that with his keen in- 
terest in public affairs he would have liked to 
have held some of those offices which can be 
obtained only by election, but the work be had 
undertaken to do made him imavailable as a 
candidate for any of them. He knew it well, 
but he kept on just the same. The sacrifice of 
all chances of gratifying worthy ambition was 
one of the many he deliberately made. He was 
absolutely disinterested. He never had any 



S9« CHARLES JO^PH BONAPARTE 

kind of axe to grind. Everybody knew it. The 
only kind of attack that anybody could think 
of making on Tijm was to call him the 'Impoial 
Peacock of Park Avenue/ or something of that 
sort, the insinuation of course being that he 
hdd himself above most of his fellow-citizens. 
To the best of my apprehension that charge 
was false, but that it was the only one ever 
made is convincing evidence how spotless were 
his life and his actions. 

"He gave himself and all that he was and 
had to making better his city, his state and 
his country, and in so doing he honored great^ 
the profession of which he was a member, and 
which is here gathered to pay tribute to his 
memory." 

In dismissing the meeting Chief Judge Soper 
stud: 

"It has been suggested here today that there 
were heights in the legal profession to which 
Mr. Bonaparte did not care to attain because 
they involved some surrender of his inde- 
pendence of action; and that the very vehe- 
mence of his attack from time to time, in 
support of public causes, may have deprived 
him of the rewards of high office. Some folks 
might say, and some have said, perhaps, that 
he was not altogether a practical man; and 



TRIBUTES OF ASSOCIATES 293 

yet, now that he is gone and we can study his 
figure of great political power and moral dig- 
nity, we can realize in part how great has been 
his influence for good and how pemument have 
been his accomplishments. And we wonder if 
it may not be said that the life of Mr. Bonaparte 
was the most practical, the moat useful, that 
any in our time has Uved. We are grateful to 
you, gentlonen, for the presentation of this 
matter. TTie record will be received gladly 
and the minute of his life will be spread, with 
your speeches, upon the permanent record of 
the court." 



Hi 



INDEX 



"Academic Phwisee," 103 

Adams, Charles Fnuicb. 207. SD8 

AdBQU, Henry. f07. 80S 

Adams, John, 808 

Addresses: on electioa frauds m 
Maryland, 67-71; on Christian 
morality aiid political lite, 78; on 
Tctormera, 79; on ^ood govern- 
ment and go«Ki dtuens, 80-68; 



„.8»;c 

the Republican Party, 90; on 
future of negro race in America, 
lOB-111; on trusts. 129, 130; 
trhen taking oath of office as At- 
lomey-General, 130; on enforce- 
ment of the law. lie, 150; the la- 
ter addresses of, 174, jf.; on men 
in office and the government, 175; 
on civic responsibilitiei of girls. 
176-178; on self-government, 
179; on non-political offices and 
politics, 180; on Americans, 184; 
m the Presidential campaisD of 
1912, 189-190; on prepu^ess, 
191-196, 202, 209; on universal 
military training, 19(1; on why 
ire are in the war and how we 
may win it, 1S7-190; on lessons 
of the war, 202-201; on the 
Catholic Church. 238 #.; dl wel- 
come to Cardinal Gibbons, 211; 
on the Indian problem, 846 

Alaska. 219, 280 

Alexander, Prince, 126 

Allegory, an, 26 

America, Catholics in, 219 

"American Institutions and the 
Catholic Churcli," 239 

Americtui Natioi^ lurth of th^ 



American Revolution, the, 81-87 
Americanism of Bon^>arte, 281 
Americans, two conspicuous tmta 

of. ISl 
Anarchism, 171 
Annapolis, reprimand to middi^ 

man at, 116-118 
Anti-Saloon League, the, 163 
Appearance, personal, of Charles J. 

Bonaparte. 107, 108, 220, 227, 

262, 268, 277 
Appleton, Mrs. Caroline Edgar, 23 
Aliment of oases, the. S6 
Aristocracy, 89 
Arislodemos, 177, 178 
Armistice. German requests for, 

197 
Armstrong, Aleiander, 87S; his 

tribute to Bonaparte. 281-287 
Arts and Sciences. Graduate 3diool 

of, 255 
Arundell Clab, address before^ 199 
Attorney-General, Bonaparte'a ap- 
pointment as, M, 59, 128-182. 

259; hostile press criticism of 

Bonaparte as, 137./., 152./. 

Baltimore, the Bonaparte home in, 

18, 212-215, 228; the fight tor 
honest government in, M,ff., 71, 

72, 171, 27B; Roosevdt's mvefr 
ti^ation of Federal offices in, 93; 
tnbute <d Bendi and Bar of, 10, 
271-893 

Baltimore Reform League^ thc^ 

73, 76, 77, 108. OT9 

Bar of Baltimore, thc^ tribute of, 

19, 271-298 
Baruch, Barney. SOT 
Battenberg. Pnnce Louis of, 126 
"BelU Vista," 215-219 
BdUrophon, the, lOS 

Bench and Bar of Baltimore tbc^ 
tribute of, 19, 971-298 



296 



INDEX 



BtnningtoH, tlie, boiler explosion 
OD, lU-114 

Biggs, Bobert, 8T8 

Blilcher, Field Manh&l von, 90, 91. 

Bonaptule, CtU'lo, 814 

Bonaparte. Chariet Joseph, birth 
of, 20,82; ancestry oF,S,f.. 20, 
K8, 289; dominatiDB influeoce 
of hU mother, 20, 21 ; character 
of. 21, 23, 27, 82; S8, 48. SO. SI, 
M, 59. 63. 132, 222, ff., 254. 
267. 270. 272, 274. 275, 280, 282; 
childhood of, 23, /., 222; at the 
BuJBc School. 24-30; tiia love for 
America, 24; an allegory by,26;a 
profirieot scholar, 27, 29, 40-42, 
46; at Harvard UniverBity, 81- 
42, 181, 2S3; a devout Catholic. 
S2. 39. 237./ ; his fight for clean 
poUticB, 32,/., 61,/, 72, 73, 03, 
102, 103, 8S4, 2fi6. 27B-280. SSa- 
292; the Si{^ Society formed 
by, 34-36; hia admiration for his 
Iffother Jerome^ SO, S7; at Law 
School, 43-47, 2SS; ind^Mindeat 
attitude of, toward political par- 
ties, 4«. 282. 2SS; admitted tcM -> 
the bar. 48; his career as a law^ 
yer. 48. f., 62-59 174. 255; 
pleasing peratmality of, 48, 5S; 
wealth a handicap to, 49: friend 
and champion of the helple^ 50; 
his sense of humor, 60, 58, 133, 
153; 159, ISl./., 206, 250. 200: 
fistic encounter of, 52; wonderful 
memory of, 54, 64; arguing of 
cases by, 56-58; a pioneer in 
civil service reform. 61, 78, 77, 
Jf., 174./.; the smile of, 64, 106, 
108, 152, 225; denunciation ot 
bosses by, 64 ; his Gght for honest 
government in Maryland, 6^/., 
112, 174. 185. 205, 258, 263, 269, 
279, 285-287; appointed super- 
visor of elections, 73-76; practi- 
cal attitude ot toward reformers. 
79; in politics, a Republican. 00; 
his close relationshi p with Roose- 
velt. 92. /.. 06. 133, 135, 151, 
186-188, 197; a fighting lawyer, 
94. 282-284; services of, deured 
by Roosevdt, 94^ 85; Indian ter- 



ritoiy investigations of, 94; in- 
vestigation of postal swice 
frauds. 05; popular!^ aever 
sou^t b]^, 95, M; a RepnbUcan 
Presidential elector, 06; postmas- 
ter recommended by, 96. 07; car- 
toons of. 97, 103; his reputation 
as a reformer, KM, 278-280; ap- 
pointed Secretary at the Navy, 
102-108; opprobrions names 
given to, by pditiod CDonies, 
103; persomd appearance ot, 107, 
108; resemblaine to Nwtjeon. 
107, 220, 227, 262, 288; 277; ac- 
tivities in the Navy Depart- 
ment. 112-127; his services to 
the negro. 108-111, 17^ 256, 
~17; the Btrmijmtm inquiry, 

116; 

, 117; 

suggestion of, regarding the Ctm- 
tHtvUon, 118-123; hu^ navy 
recommended by, 100. 128; eSi- 
dency as Secretary of tbe Navy, 
liO; his description of hia Bzpoi- 
ences in Navy Departnwat, 12S- 
126;appointedAttomey-GaMiaL 
128-132. 164,/.. 259; the popu- 
lar opinion of, 131. 192; lus ac- 
count of Roosevelt's adminialTa* 
tion, 133-136; hostile press criti- 
cism of. as Attorney-General, 
137-139, 143-148, 152-164. 167, 
158; rumors ot discord with 
Roosevelt groundless, 130, 149; 
146; his criticism ot Boosevelt's 
Provincetown address, 138-141; 
prosecution of trusts by, 140. 
142, 141, 148-150, 156. 156, 287; 
misrepresentation ot. by news- 

Bpers, 143, 146. 14B, 153. 154; 
se report of intended retire- 
ment of, 138. 146, 147. 152; 
Roosevelt's appreciation c^. 160. 
131; indifference of, to attacks 
upon, 162-154; suggested aa 
Presidential candidate. 158; the 
"official will" of, 169; interview 
of, with governor ot New Met- 
ico, 164-167; bis methods in 
office described by Mr. Gauss, 



1S0-I71: retireineiit ot, from 
public office, 168, IBB, 173, /.; 
refusal of, to puivhase Napo- 
leonana, 171, 214; distaste for 
politica, 173; luw practice re- 
sumed by, 174; a, gifted orator, 
174, 277, 883 ; the later addresses 
of, 174-185; advocaey of civil 
service and municip^ reforms, 
174-185; candidacy of Rooaevelt 
supported by, ISO, J. ; hia tribute 
to Roosevelt, 136-188; support 
of Hugbes by, 189, 100; tm dis- 
approvul of Wilson's adminislra- 
tiou, I8!>, 100; need of prepared- 
ness urged by. 191,/., 281; atti- 
tude toward compulsory mili- 
tary training, 196; attitude 
toward America in tlie World 
War, 198, 199; ^ewa of, on the 
LeagueofNationa, 199-201. £04: 
two lessons drawn from World 
War by, 202-204; marriage 
of, 209-212; his home at Chest- 
nut Wood. 212-215, 228; heir to 
bait of his grandmother's profv- 
erty, 213; at Bella Vislji, 215- 
219; his love of horses, 217-219; 
courtesy of. 217. 261, 281; an- 
nual trips to Canada, 219, 220; 
failing health of, 219, 220, 229- 
£31; trip to Alaska, 220; death 
of. 221, 231; solitariness of, 222. 
22G; his devotion to the right, 
223, 224; tribute of, to S. T. 
Wallis, 223; idiosyncrasies of, 
225. 226. 277; sincerity and high 

Erinciple of, 224; frieuds of, 225; 
is devotion to wife and home, 
226. 231, 232; Euwpe never vis- 
ited by. 227; beloved by his offi- 
cial and domestic household. 
227; burial of, 231. 232; his but- 
ler's account of, 233-236; chari- 
table work of, 249-262; a mem- 
ber of the Progressive Party, 
887; on Harvard Board of Over- 
seers, 257; Dr. Eliot's estimate 
of. 253-258; Richard H. Dana's 
estimate of. 258-261 ; William D. 
Poulke'a estimate of, 262-267; 
Lucius B. Swift's estimate of. 



EX 297 

207-271; James R. Garfield's 
estimate of, 272; tribute of Civil 
Service Reform League to. 273; 
tribute to. of Bencb and Bar of 
Baltimore, 274-2B3; so intenae 
American, 284. See alio Ad- 
dresses and Letters 

Bonaparte, Mrs. Charles Joseph 
(Ellen Channing Day). 6. 8. 220; 
at White House supper. 167. 
iea;fatberof, 209; meeting with 
her future husband, 210-212; 
marriage of, 212; Napoleonana 
presented to Maryland Histori- 
cal Society by, 214; devotion of 
husband to, 226, 231 

Bonaparte, Charlotte, 17 

Bonaparte. Jerome, marriage of, 
3-7; refuses to return to Prance 
without wife, 7-10; his mother's 
letter to. 9;goesto Paris to plead 
with Napoleon, 10; Napoleon's 
eSorts to annul marriage of. 12; 
consents to divorce, 13, 14; made 
King of Westphalia, 14, 15. 126, 
227; sees wife m Pitti Palace, 14; 
death of, 19 

Bonaparte, Mrs. Jerome (E^itia- 
beth Patterson), marriage of, 8- 
7; forbidden to visit France, 7, 
10, II; sails for Lbboa, 10; goes 
to England, 11; birth ot aaa, 11; 
pension offered to, by Napoleon. 
11. 13; return of, to America, 13; 
divorce of, 14; visits of, to Eu- 
rope. 14-20; reception of. in 
Paris. 19; welcome to. in Geneva, 
16; her visit to Borne, 16, 17;ap- 
peal of. for share in husband'a 
estate. 19. 20; decree entitling 
descendants of, to name of Bona- 
parte, 19; disapproves of son's 
marriage, 19; death of, 20; dis- 



tweea grandsons, 213; portraits 
of, 216; diary of. 271; letters of. 
18. 14. IS 
Bonaparte, Jerome Napoleon, 211; 
birth of . 1 1 ; his mother's descrip- 
tion of. 16; plan to marry to 
cousin. 17; at Harvard, 18, 263; 



INDEX 



ptderoioe of, for Amsko, IB, 
19; nuTTUge of, 19; visit of, to 
Pari^ 19; made citiceo of France, 
19; death of, 80; pnaident of 
Union Cbb, 41; Napoleonic rel- 
ics collected by, 214 ; letter* from 
bia (on to, SS-81; letter* oL 17, 
18 

Bou^Mrte. Bin. Jerome Napoleon 
(Siuan May Williams). 19; duu^ 
acter of, 20, 21; inSnence of, 
upon hei too, 80; letters to, from 
ber ion, S2, 86-S9, 41. 44-i7, 
218; Dr. Pe^ibody's letter to, 42. 

Bonaparte^ J«n>ine Nucdeon, Jr., 
4C; biTtbor. 20; aketdi of life <rf, 
2S^ 88; hi> bfotber^s ulnunition 
for, Sff, 87; gnuidiDotber'a di>- 
Kpfaoval irf taaniage of, 213; 
heir to hall of gtaadmoUieT'B 
property, 213 

Bonaparte, JoMph, 17, 21S 

Bonaparte, Letina (mother td Na- 
pc^eon). 8, 10, 17, ID, 214 

Bcmaparte, Nuioleon. 8$e Napo- 
leon I 

Boone. Daniel 21S 

BorghcK, the Princess, 10, 17 

Bom, the political, 04. 67, 81, 87 

Boston, tiie first families of, 89; 
protest of, agaiiut destruction 
of the CottMUhOum, IIS, 121 

Boston Oty Club, address befwe, 
184 

Bourmont, General, M 

Brearley, Samuel. 225, 220 

Bribery, B8. 89, 93 

Briscoe, Nathan, his story ot 
Charles J. Bonaparte, 233-236 

Bmce, William Cabell, 27S ; tribute 
of. to Bonaparte, 69, 276-281 

Bryn Mawr, address at, 176-178 

Buchanan, James, 202 

Buck, Walter H., 207 

Bujac, M(»iaieur and Madame, the 
school of, 24-30. 

Burke. 80, 82 

Burnett, Paul M., on Bonaparte's 
ability and methods as a lawyer. 



Canada, annnal Ttstts to, <19, SCO 

Canadian Gub. addreu before, 17S 

Canova, 214 

Car^, Francis. 78 

Camase, the Bonaparte, 226 

Carroll, Archbishi^ John, B 

Cartoons, newspaper, BT, 103 

Case* at law, the arguing ot, St; 
criminal, 57; divorce, fiS; Su- 
preme Court, ISA 

Catholic Chnrdi, the, Bonaparte's 
devotion to, 82. SS, SS7, /.; 
the misuon of, 238; its rclatioDS 
to American institutioas, 289; 
province <rf laymen in, S40 

CathcJic University of Anteriea, 
the, address before 77 

Catholics, the province <d the lay- 
man, 240; good, as good cittsoi^ 
242-245; in the World War, H8; 
increase of, in America, 249 

Central America, 134 

Centttry Mammne, the, 123. lU . 

Character of Charles J. Bonaparte^ 
21, 23, 27, 82. 88, 48, £0. Al, S&, 
09, 69. 192, 222./., 2A4, 267. 27% 
272. 274, ers, esO, 282 

Charitable work, 249-252 

Charity Organisation Society, the^ 
249 

Charies I, 87, 240 

Chestnut Wood, the Boni^Mtrte 
home. S12-21S, 228 

Chicago, the fire in, 211, 212; ad- 
dress at. 149. 150 

Childhood of Charies J. Bona^ 
parte, 23./., 222 

China, 194 

Christianity and politics, 78, 70 

Citizens, good, and good govern- 
ment, 80-82; good Catholics as 
good, 242-240 

"Civic Responsibilities of Girls," 
address on, 176 

Citil Seniee ChnmicU, the, 209 

Civil Service Commission, Na- 
tional, 99 

CiVil Semee Record, the^ 269 

Civil Service reform, the fight for, 
32. 87. 61, 73, 76. 174./., 256, 
268-8SI, 208, 280 



INDEX 



Civil Service Reform League <A 
Maryland, tie, 73, 77, 279 

Civil Service Bef onn League, N»> 
tional. 78. 77. 2S8. 262-8M; 
Boosevelt b member of, 92; ad- 
dreuea before, 1S3, 185; tribute 
of the CouiKJI of, 273. 274 

dvU ServKB R^ormtr, the, 73, 269 

Civil War, the, 21 : MstykDd's iit- 
uation in, BB. 60 

Concord, oddrMB kt, 83-87 

Connecticut Historiol Sodety. 
the, 209 

Corutiiation, the, suggestion to de- 
stroy, 118-123, 103 

Constitutjonal ConvenBon of 1884. 
69,70 



■on, 6 

Corbet. Cbariee Louis, 214 
Corporations, prosecution of, 140, 

150,156 
Cortclyou, 136 
Cotirant, the Hartford, 200 
Courtesy, 217, 261, 281 
Cowen, John E., 72 
Cranks, ITl. 250 
Ciillon, Hotel 206 
Criminal cases, 57 
Criticism, hostile, of newspapers, 

197-139. 143-148, 1S2-164, 157, 

158 
Cromwell, 193 
Cuba, 134 

Curry, Governor, 184-187 
Curtis, George William, 2S0, 262 

Dallas, Alexander J., S 

Dana, Oichard Henry, 263, 269; 
estimate of Bonaparte by, 258- 
261 

Daughters of the American JUvo- 
lution, 202 

Day, Ellen Channmg. Ste Bona- 
parte, Mrs. Charles J. 

Day, Jeremiah, 209 

Day, Thomas, 209 

Day, Thomas Mills, 80S 

Day. Blrs. Thomas Mills, 210-212, 
220 

Decalogue, the. and politics. 78 



Denton, address at, 120 

Dickens, Charles, Bonaparte's fa- 
vorite author, 47, 82, 124 

Didier, Eugene L., hb "Life and 
Letters ot Madame Bonaparte" 
quoted, IS 

Disfranchising Amendments of 
Maryland Couatitutiai, defeat 
of, 108, 109. 174 

Divorce cases, S8 

Doorkeepers, 185 

Eagh, the Brooklyn. 160 
Eaton. Dorman B., 982 
Edgar, Mrs. Corolioe, 28 
"Education of Henry Adams." 

the, 207, 208 
Election frauds, 86-76, 70 
Elections, Supervisor of, 73-78 
Elector, Bepublkan FresideDtial, 

05 
Eliot, Charles W., 81, 82, ISli bis 

estimate of Bonaparte ftSS-tB6 
Emerson, William, 86 
English Ovil War, the, 87, 270 
EngUshmeu of New England, M 
Enn, the, 10, 11 
Ecenijig Sun, the Baltimore. 101- 

198 

Fiction, reading ot 47 

Fistic encounter, a, 62 

Ford, Henry, 200 

Forum, the, 66 

Foulke, William Dudley, bi* esti- 
mate of Bonaparte, 982-267 

France, consultMl regarding Bona- 
parte's appcnntment to Cabinet, 
102 

Frauds Jos^h, Emperor, 203 

Freedom, 179 

Friends of Chailes J. Bonsftartev 



,76,282 
Garfield Jamra R., 160; quoted, 
164; his estimate ot B«m^)arte, 



mDEX 



Gcocce HL St. 87 

Gibboni, CHdinal, 2M, M2; quot- 
ed, IM; addrcH of wdcome to^ 
t41; BotUfMrte'a iketGh of. 946- 
848 
Gilman Coinitr School, addiew be* 

fore, 180 
Giiia, dvic respaniibili^ of, 170 
Gittings HonKstead, Ote. CIS. 21< 
Golden Rule and p(4itics. 78 
Oaod 6oMni>t«iii^ 78 
Gonun. Soubff. M, 107, U8 
Goraum Riiig, Uie^ overthrow of, 
71. 79. lU 



80-821 <u>d good men in office, 

ITS; and freedom. 179, 180 
Graduate School ot Arts and Sci- 

encea. tbe^ CSS 
Grant, niyue* &. 4S-4S. 202 
Greel^ Horace, 4S-4S 
Gric^ Harriet. 227; ber picture of 

CharlcB J. Bon^ait^ 22S-23S 

Harford Road, the Bonaparte 
home of^ 216-219 

Harrimao, 14# 

Harris. W. Hall, 2TS; appointment 
of, aa poaUnaoter, 96; tribute of, 
276 

Harrison, Benjamin. 263, 20S 

Barvard Advoeate, the, SS 

Hartard GroduoW Magimne, the, 
887 

Harvard Law School 43-47, 8S5 

Harvard University, 18, 81-48, S8, 
181, 208-810, 2S3-2dS; the Sig- 
net Sodety at, 34-36i Phi Beta 
Kappa address at, 81 ; the Board 
of Overseers of. 8S7 

Hay, John. 222 

Hayvfood, 140 

Hendricks, Bishop, 812 

Hobbies, 251 

Holmes, Oliver Wendefl. 81, 121 

Holy Name Society, the, address 
before, 248 

Horaea. Bonaparte's love of, 217- 
210 

House, Colonel, 806, 207 

Howard, Charles Morris, 275; his 
tribute to Bonaparte, 282-884 



Hu^iea. Charie* E.. 189. IM 
Humor. SO. 58, ISS. 1S2, 1S&. 161, 
/, 806, 2S0; 266 

Ideology, 281 

IdioayDcrastes, personal, <rf C. J. 
Bon^arte. 825, 2M, S77 

"Impenal Peacock of Park Ave- 
nue," 103, 808 

Indian Commisaioner^ the Board 
of. 94, es6 

Indian problem, the. MS, 246 

Indian Territmy, inveatigationa 
in. 94 

Indiuia Mngwun^ Committee, 
the, 267 

Indiana, unjust b«atmeiit of, 110 

Infallibility dogma, the, 89, 40 

Interviews, i maginary newniuec, 
1431 146, 148 

Isdin, Henri-Fr&i&iiv C14 

Jackson, Andrew, 202 

Japan, 131 

Jefferson, lliomBs. 106, 8W 

Johnson, John Helmsley, 73 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, && 

Jones, John Paul, 123 

Journal o} Commerce, the, 13S, 14fi 

Justice, the Department of, 160 

Kaiser William, 197, 203 
Kidder. Camillua G^ 228 
Kinson, 215 
Knox. Attorney-General, ISl 



Idngdell Case System of teaching 

hiw, 266 
Latimer, Bishop, SS 
Law, practice of, 48,^., 68-S9, 174, 

856 
Law School, Harvard, 43-47, 26S 
Iaws, need of obedience to, 128, 

136.140 
Lawyer, Bonaparte's ability and 

methods as a. SS-69; a fighting, 

94. 288-2S4 
Laymen in the Catholic Cborch, 

240 



INDEX 301 

Lngne at NaBona, tlie^ 10^-201, Midahipman, reprimand to, 118~ 



Le Camsa, Aleunder, B 

LeonidBs, 178, 177 

Letters of Cbarlea J. Bonaparte : to 
his father, 16^30; to hi* mother. 
S8, S6-39, 11. 44-17, SIS; to 
Rooserclt, 98-101, 190-147; to 
Judge Undia, 148; to Taft, 169; 
refusing to purchase Napole- 
onana, 171; alter an addreu on 
ansTchiam, 171; to Mrs. D. £. 
Wheeler, 201-207; to W. H. 
Buck, 207 

LenatU Hfold, the, lOS 

liberia, 110 

Liberty, American love of, 1S4 

Lincoln, Abraham, 60 

Liquorice Trust, the, 140, 111 

LiveiT, the Bon^tarte, 226 

Louis of Battenberg. 126 

Louu XVm, IS 

Lowell. 62 

L7on, Ernest. 110 

Macaulay, ISO, 240 
Madison, James, IW. Mtt 
Mahon, John J., lOS 
Bfanunie, the nurse, 28 
Manning, Cleveland P.. C27, 232. 

893 
Mars, 184 
Maryland, the Gght for honest gov- 

emment in, 66. /.. 142, 174, ISfi, 

eOS, 2SS, 263, 269, 279, 835-287; 

in the Civil War, 68. 69; Civil 

Service Bef orm League of, 78, 77 
Maryland Club, the, 21 
Maryland Historical Sodety, the. 

e, 214, 281 
Maryland, UniverEity of, address 

before Law School of, 197-198 
Massot, 216 
McKinley, WiUiam, 202 
Medals, 188 
Mdvin. Amos, S6 
Memory, a wonderful. S4, 04 
Men in office, good, and good gov- 



118 
Military truni 



impnlscHya 



196,197 
Mill. Joba Stuart. 179. ISO 
M3wBukee, attempted assasdn*- 

tion of Roosevelt at. 188 
-]|£ss Susan," 41 
Moody. Attorney-General, 90. 100, 

ISA, IJII 



1 government r 
rf. 174./. 



Mire, Madame, 0, 10, 17, 19. 214 
Merit syst«n in dvil aervic*^ 256. 
268, 2«0 



Namcv decree entitUng descui- 
danta of Elizabeth Patterson tn 
the Bonaparte. 10 

Names given Charles J. Bonaparte 
by politicBl enemies. 109 

N^ier, Colonel. 182 

Napoleon L 3-6, 186, 880; refusal 
m, to acknowledge brother's 
American marriage, 7, 8. II-IS; 
coronation of, 18; abt^cation of. 
14, 16; cartoons of. IDS; Charles 
J. Bonaparte's resemUance toi 
107. 820, 287. 862, 268, 277; con- 
demnation for, 171; St. Hdena 
statue of, 820; marble bust d, 
814; letter of, 10 

Napoleon IH. 19, 36, 811 

N^xdeonana, the collection of, 
171, 813. 814 

Narvaez, Marshal, 198 

NatioDt self-government in a. ITO, 
180 

National Gvil Service Commit- 
Hon, the, 08 

National Civil Service Reftnm 
League. 8«e Civil Service Re- 
form League, National 

National Conf^ence of Chariliea 
and Conectiona. address to, 860 

National Municipal League, 176 

National Security League, addraas 
before, 106 

Naval Academy at Annapolis, 1 1 6- 
118